35 



me. Plainly it would be a great advantage, as you say, for an oyster to 

 be changed into an alderman, for then he could not be eaten by him. 

 No doubt about it. For myself I can swallow anything. Even such a 

 palpable contradiction as all this goes down with me. No one can con- 

 tradict me so well as I do myself, and there, you see, I have the 

 advantage of you. 



I believe, for all I have just said, that "each creature will tend to 

 become more and more improved in relation to its condition in life." 

 Yes ; and yet you say that this is to blow hot and cold, for that the 

 lower forms have not been "exterminated" by the improved ones, but 

 that both live close together in innumerable forms without the slightest 

 tendency to any such imaginary improvement the horse and the ass 

 for instance. Ay, the ass. How is this, you say. Yes, how is it ? 



I believe, this is my reply, that we must " see no difficulty in 

 believing " anything in fact. My argument, in short, is this : if my 

 theory be true, it must be so ; but my theory is true, therefore it is so. 

 Professor Sedgwick has, indeed, said that if a theory proves no law, it 

 is " worse than nothing," " it is nothing better than imposture." Pro- 

 fessor Sedgwick was a weak-minded man, if he said so. I hold the 

 opposite doctrine. c^**** 



I believe that " assuredly if this (my) theory be true," an " nrfcfcjaably 

 great " number of links must have existed " between all living and^ ex- 

 tinct species." You say there is no trace of them, and you ask, where 

 are they? Echo answers, "Where?" 



I believe that every animal, bird, plant, &c., are one and all striving 

 and "struggling" with and against each other "for existence," and that 

 natural selection is looking on with fell pleasure at the destruction of 

 all the weakest which must go to the wall. You say, but do you not 

 see, year after year, the same beautiful flowers as before, primroses, 

 violets, cowslips, and bluebells? Do you not hear the same sweet notes 

 of the birds, and do you not see them build the same wonderfully- 

 constructed nests that they did of yore? Do you not listen to the cry 

 of the cuckoo as ever of old, and note the instincts of the various 

 animals ? My reply to all such questions is stereotyped, and therefore 

 can never change, " All organic beings are striving to seize on each 

 place in the economy of Nature." 



I believe it, though I see the smaller and the smallest birds main- 

 tain their numbers as of yore the wren and the robin, the thrush and 

 the blackbird, the swallow and the dove, and so on through all Creation. 

 So let it be. I have no objection, but what I say I say; and what I 

 say is, natural selection is the be-all and end-all for me. It works by 

 accidental change and " extermination." Every creature that does not 

 change must be expunged from the page of Nature. You may ask me 

 if the "origin of species" is "by means of natural selection," where it 

 is that natural selection exists ? You may further ask me. as I speak 

 of "favoured races," whom or by what it is they are favoured. In 

 reply, I can believe that any effect may be produced without an existent 

 cause. 



I believe in assumption without proof as the highest philosophy ; in 

 speculation not borne out by facts, and, in a word, in " imagination in 

 science." 



I believe that Locke lays it down that want of proof is one 

 of the "causes of error," but what of that? 



I believe, in fine, that " new forms " are continually being produced . 

 You ask me to say, where? That I do not mean to do. All I can say 

 is that unlimited time " might " have produced such ergo, it has been 

 so. There must have been such unlimited time, as bagged by my 

 theory, and consequently my case is proved. 



