43 



Darwin writes as coolly as if such ' acquisitions ' were of common 

 experience, instead of being- the wildest speculation, contrary to every 

 conviction of our nature, and never in a single instance confirmed or 

 indicated by experiment. It is really an abuse of language to call 

 such writing ' scientific : ' to mistake the ' Arabian Nights ' for history 

 would be far more excusable. 



" Such being the character of the thesis, we need not spend much 

 time on the new hypothesis. The moment he attempts to draw any 

 conclusion, Mr. Darwin himself is sensible of the exceeding tenuity 

 of his premises. Showing us plainly enough what he is in quest of, 

 he writes of what he has found either in the optative or conditional 

 mood. In place of what is, we hear of what might, could, would, or 

 should be of what is probable or may be easily conceived and un- 

 happily the probability is often in inverse ratio to the importance of 

 the conjecture. Here again Darwinism failing to establish its point 

 by any kind of proof, is obliged to take refuge in imagination. 



" Its author, meanwhile, with as much assurance as if he had com- 

 pleted a mathematical demonstration, blandly apologises for the shock 

 to our taste and our religion, by avowing that, for his own part, he 

 would rather be descended from a monkey than a Fuegian savage : 

 he adds that ' it is not more irreligious to explain (?) the origin of 

 man as a distinct species from some lower form, than to explain the 

 birth of the individual through the laws of ordinary reproduction.' 

 The first excuse overlooks the little fact that the simian ancestry 

 involves the savage also." 

 Again, 



" DARWINISM AND ASTRONOMY. 



" To the Editor of tlie Times. 



" Sir, After the many solid arguments adduced in your late ad- 

 mirable and most welcome notices of Mr. Charles Darwin's recent 

 work, I should like to make only one suggestion. Mr. Darwin's theory 

 requires us to believe that animal life existed on this globe at a period 

 when, according to a theory much more plausible than his, the earth 

 and all the planets with the sun constituted but one diffused nebula. 

 Astronomers really have some data on which to found this theory 

 of theirs, since marked variations in the conformation of several 

 nebulas within historic times are now on record ; whereas all the 

 variations which Mr. Darwin has been able to point out in species, 

 and especially in man, within the same limits of time, are either zero 

 or of an extremely nebulous character. 



" I remain, Sir, yours faithfully, 

 "April 10." "ASTRONOMICUS. 



Thus much from the Times and John Hull, now from the Gloljc : 



" The other point to note is Professor Huxley's speech. The learned 

 gentleman is not only abandoning himself to a bad habit of mischievous 

 talking ; he is becoming inane. What did he mean by entertaining a 

 company like that assembled around the board of the Royal Academy 

 with a wretched rechauffe of the old story that man is a cooking animal 

 with the obvious variation a propos of the occasion that he is distin- 

 guished by the power to ' draw ! ' Professor Huxley must either be 

 running rapidly to seed himself, or he has a very low opinion of his 

 contemporaries when he expects them to be amused, even after dinner, 

 with such feeble wit." 



