All the Articles of the Darwin Faith. 29 



To call in aid such an indefinite agency is a mere veil for 

 ignorance. It may even be doubted whether to assert 

 that a process takes effect in an infinite time, be not simply 

 a round a roundabout way of," etc. etc. 



" If in short, in its general application, Mr. Darwin's 

 hypothesis is utterly unsupported by observed facts, it is 

 still more destitute of such support in its application to 

 man." 



" This is precisely the solution which Mr. Darwin is 

 unable to apply to his instances of approximation between 

 species. If he could say in a single instance, ' solvitur 

 ambulando.' ' here is a case of one true species having 

 passed into another,' we should have a practical proof that 

 the kind of approximation he brings to light is of such a 

 kind as to end in coincidence. But this, as we have seen, 

 is what he has not done. It is, in fact, not a little curious 

 that the finite time which Newton demands is the very 

 condition most energetically repudiated by Mr. Darwin 

 and his followers. They place no limit whatever to the 

 amount of time which their process requires. The know- 

 ledge of so prolonged a proof, would have been of no 

 practical avail even to Methuselah. 



" We are reminded, in fact, by such speculations, of the 

 famous story which Corporal Trim endeavoured so effectu- 



