SECOND DAY'S SITTING. 35 



so wonderfully so perfectly adapted to the purposes for 

 which man requires it. On your hypothesis, man owes it 

 entirely to the power of Natural Selection that he is what 

 he is! 



Hrnno. Mr. Darwin, my Lord, endows what he calls Natural 

 Selection, with all that power and wisdom which we are 

 accustomed to attribute to the Almighty. In his work on 

 " The Origin of Species," he says regarding it, " It may be 

 metaphorically said that Natural Selection is daily and 

 hourly scrutinizing, throughout the world, the slightest 

 variations ; rejecting those that are bad, preserving and 

 adding up all that are good ; silently and insensibly 

 working, whenever and wherever opportunity offers, at the 

 improvement of each organic being in relation to its organ c 

 and inorganic conditions of life." (p. 96.) 



Darwin. My Lord, "the time will, before long, come 

 when it will be thought wonderful that naturalists, who 

 were well acquainted with the comparative structure and 

 development of man and other mammals, should have 

 believed that each was the work of a separate act of creation." 

 (VoL i. p. 33.) 



Lord C. That, at all events, is, at present, the prevailing 

 belief of man himself as to his origin. 



Darwin. " In my work," my Lord, " on ' THE ORIGIN OF 

 SPECIES,' I had two distinct objects in view : firstly, to show 

 that species had not been separately created ; and secondly, 

 that Natural Selection had been the chief agent of change-;" 

 . . . and if, in that work, " I have erred in giving to Natural 

 Selection great powers, which I am far from admitting, or in 

 having exaggerated its power, which is in itself probable, I 

 have, at least, as I hope, done good service in aiding to over- 

 throw the dogma of separate creations." (VoL i. pp. 152, 

 153.) 



