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FIRST DAY'S SITTINO. 25 



Darwin. Those " general reasons," my Lord, are based 

 n facts. 



Lord C. Quite so, Mr. Darwin. Your book, I am well 

 aware, is full of facts. Of course, you reason from those 

 facts, and endeavour to build up your hypothesis on them ; 

 but " the older and honoured chiefs in natural science " see 

 nothing in your facts to sustain " evolution in any form." 

 You have no facts that directly and unmistakeab'y prove 

 evolution. The facts you find may be the remote descend- 

 ants of the facts you do not find, but we need to be 

 assured of their descent. By-and-by we shall consider 

 the " general reasons " which have led some to " believe in 

 the general principle of evolution." But, first, let me re- 

 quest you to observe that, when you speak of " breaks in 

 the organic chain as incessantly occurring in all parts of 

 the series ... as between the orang and its nearest 

 allies, between the Tarsius and the other Lemuridae," &c., 

 you are taking for granted, instead of proving, the reality 

 of these breaks. They are breaks if your hypothesis is 

 true, but not otherwise. 



Homo. It might help our progress in the argument, my 

 Lord, if Mr. Darwin will tell us whether he will undertake 

 to prove, regarding any animal of the present day, that it 

 is, however slowly, yet unquestionably, progressing towards 

 a higher form. In his work " On the Origin of Species," 

 first edition, page 184, he says, " In North America the 

 black bear was seen by Hearne swimming for hours, with a 

 widely open mouth, thus catching, almost like a whale, 

 insects in the water. Even in so extreme a case, if the 

 supply of insects were constant, and if better adapted com- 

 petitors did not appear, I can see no difficulty in a race of 

 bears being rendered, by Natural Selection, more and more 

 aquatic in their structure and habits, with larger and larger 



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