All the Articles of tJie Darwin Faith. 43 



common experience, instead of being the wildest specu- 

 lation, 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 premisses. Show- 

 ing 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 unhappily 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 autnor, meanwhile, with as much assurance as if he 

 had completed a mathematical demonstration, blandly 

 apologises for the shock to our taste and our religion, by 

 avowing that, for hif own part, he woald rather be descen- 



