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is the greatest fact in modern philosophy. You may say, if you please, 

 that it is all fiction, and so on. Leave that to me ; I know better. 



I believe that if " humble bees were to become rare in any country," 

 it " might be a great advantage to red clover " to have a shorter flower, 

 so that the " hive bee should visit its flowers." " Thus I can under- 

 stand how a flower and a bee might slowly become, either simultaneously, 

 or one after another, modified and adapted in the most perfect manner 

 to each other." This, you see, would be of mutual advantage to both 

 of them, the bee getting honey and the clover fertility ; but, of course, 

 this could only be after the destruction of millions of races of bees and 

 ditto ditto of clover till they became suited to each other. You may 

 exclaim with Dominie Sampson, Prodigious ! Prodigious ! ! Prodigious ! ! ! 

 Well, perhaps it is. You may add, too, if you like, that it must be 

 exceedingly kind of the bees, as they have done from the first without 

 the red clover, to self-sacrifice themselves as such in untold millions 

 for what they can do so well without. It no doubt is so, but I have 

 always found bees very obliging to all my demands upon them. I may 

 say that I feel particularly obliged to the queen bee, who, though she 

 does not " gather honey every day from every opening flower " herself, 

 resolved to lay eggs which should produce bees so well-behaved towards 

 the red clover. 



I believe that this notion is to " banish the belief of the creation 

 of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modification of their 

 structure." Such notions serve the purpose of Infidels till they are 

 exploded. Professor Phillips has, indeed, said that " No one who ad- 

 vanced so far in philosophy as to have thought of one thing in relation 

 to another will ever be satisfied with laws which had no author, works 

 which had no maker, and co-ordination which had no designer." That 

 was his opinion, no doubt ; mine is different. Fiction before fact, any 

 day, for me. 



I believe that "there is no such thing as species," and I also 

 believe that " all varieties are in the act of becoming species." What 

 next? you will ask me. Whatever I please, is my answer. 



I believe that natural selection will, some time or other, cease from 

 her carnage of extermination, after the slaughter of infinite millions 

 beyond all power of calculation, or even of thought ; and that every 

 plant and every animal will be perfect. Whether they are to feed on 

 one another or not, I leave to them to say what care I? There may 

 be men with wings for aught I know, or sirens and satyrs, mermaids 

 and dragons, centaurs and sphinxes, animals able to talk, and so forth 

 in the " sequence of events." The understanding is all very well in its 

 way, but commend me to the "use of the imagination," as aforesaid. 

 Nothing like it in science ! Has not Tyndall said so ? Of course, he has. 



I believe that all this is to be brought about without any designer 

 and without any plan. What are a few impossibilities, more or less, in 

 the way of such a grand idea ? 



I believe that the intellect in man has proceeded from that which 

 had no intellect, all by natural selection. You may ask me who selected 

 natural selection. Ay, " there's the rub," as I have said before. I am 

 not going to tell you, so you need not ask me. It is easy enough to 

 ask a question, but not always so easy to answer it. 



I believe that the first creature did, in my own words, " flash into 

 existence," somehow or other. You may call this an act of Creation, I 

 do not. I have, indeed, put the question " Were the numerous kinds 

 of animals created as eggs, or seeds, or full grown"? What I mean, so 

 far as I know my own meaning, is, that as whatever is, is, so whatever 

 was, was. Intelligis-ne? 

 



