FIRST DAY'S SITTIXQ. 27 



neck was gradually lengthened by being constantly stretched. 

 Now, my Lord, there might surely be some contrivance by 

 which pigs, would have to stretch their snouts to reach 

 their food. If there is no difficulty and Mr. Darwin sees 

 none in a race of bears becoming changed by Natural 

 Selection into creatures as "monstrous" as whales, why 

 should there be any difficulty in a race of pigs being changed 

 by Natural Selection, aided by human reason, into creatures 

 as " monstrous " as elephants ? Mr. Darwin tells us in the 

 last edition of the work in question, page 89, that " pigs 

 have often been born with a sort of proboscis, like that of 

 the tapir or elephant." Let him, then, procure one of these 

 pigs, and he will have the work half done to his hand. 



Lord C. Mr. Darwin has, no doubt, changed his opinion 

 on this point ; at all events, it is wisely appointed by the 

 Great Author of nature that men shall not be able to play 

 fantastic tricks with the established order of things. Species 

 may certainly be modified within a certain limited range, 

 but each appears to have its bounds, which it cannot pass. 

 If man were able, by crossing, or by placing animals under 

 new conditions, or in any other way, to produce new kinds, 

 why, the world would be full of all sorts of monsters of 

 creatures more strange than fancy or imagination has ever 

 pictured. Let me now ask Mr. Darwin whether any fossil 

 remains of the "ape-like progenitors of man," or of the 

 " hairy quadruped " which, he says, is the common ancestor 

 of them all, have been found ? 



Darwin. My Lord, " with respect to the absence of fossil 

 remains serving to connect man with his ape-like pro- 

 genitors, no one will lay much stress on this fact who will 

 read Sir Charles Lyell's discussion, in which he shows 

 that, fii^the ^vertebrate classes, the discovery of fossil 

 remains has been an extremely slow and fortuitous process. 



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