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the end into a whale and a crab, a butterfly and a tortoise, an oak tree 

 and a man. But if you ask me who were its parents, or how it was 

 first made, or how it acquired its double quality of animal and vege- 

 table, you must go to some one else than me for an answer. I decline 

 giving one, for the best of all possible reasons. 



I believe that it was. That must be enough for you. What was 

 the " origin " of this " species " I cannot tell you, though all my book 

 pretends to be about it. It went "on the principle of Natural Selection 

 with divergence of character." Is not that clear enough for you ? 

 I say that it was so, though how it came by natural selection, when 

 there was nothing to select, is beyond even my capacity to say ; nor 

 how the next came from it. nor whether the animal came first or the 

 vegetable. All I can tell you is that there was some " divergence of 

 character " in the first seed, some " modification," some " development," 

 some " plastic " tendency, so that the first seed had to "' struggle for 

 existence " with itself, for there were then no others to struggle with ; 

 and thus came out of one both male and female, and so on till the 

 process came down to man ! 



I believe all this. It "does not appear incredible" (to me), yet, 

 as to Iwm ''the first steps in advance" came " out of the original simplest 

 structure, I can make no sufficient answer," and can only say that 

 "all speculation on the subject would be baseless and useless." So that 

 though I own that here we have no facts to guide us, still, as I say 

 it is " not incredible," what more can you possibly want ? You must 

 admit on trust all that I choose to invent for you, while all the time 

 I admit that it is quite inexplicable " no one ought to feel surprised 

 at all this." Take my word for it. 



I believe that the title I have given to my book, " On the Origin 

 of Species," is not a false one, though it tells nothing- as to the origin 

 of my " origin," where there could by no possibility have been any 

 selection, nothing to select, nothing to select from. 



I believe that as we possess (viz., in my doctrine) only the "last 

 volume " of the " geological record," although the difficulties of my 

 notion are " inexplicable," I can make them " disappear." Xo doubt 

 I have to beg the whole question, but that is the only sort of logic 

 that I care to be guided by. I have furnished my library from the 

 land of dreams, and I much prefer it to the volume of the " Testimony 

 of the Rocks." The latter I own is in existence, while no page of 

 mine is to be found, except in my own brain ; but " I am of the same 

 opinion still." 



I believe that Geology giving us no traces of the existence of 

 "infinitely numerous" gradations of extinct species is "the most 

 obvious of the many objections which may be urged against my views," 

 but what have I to do with that ! 



I believe that the remains of the horse and of the tapir are found 

 in the same formation, but for all that I hold that there must have 

 been innumerable links between them, though not one of them has 

 ever been found. 



I believe that geology tells us truly all about the large and the 

 small genera, but nothing about all the intermediate species which 

 must once have existed because I choose to say so. You may call this 

 what you like, but that is my opinion, which is final. 



I believe that no trace even of such organic life has been detected 

 in the basement of the strata of the rocks, it being destitute of the 

 remains of any animals, so that I have no evidence of my theory, but it 

 matters not. Evidence to prove it is not wanted by a person like 

 me. I maintain that it is indubitable that life swarmed in that primi- 

 tive region, though we only meet with the lowest creatures at the lower 



