104 DARWINIANA. 



II. 



" I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study 

 and dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the 

 view which most naturalists entertain, and which I formerly 

 entertained, namely, that each species has been independently 

 created, is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are 

 not immutable ; but that those belonging to what are called the 

 same genera are lineal descendants of some other and generally 

 extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varie- 

 ties of any one species are the descendants of that species. 

 Furthermore, I am convinced that itfatural Selection has been 

 the main, but not exclusive, means of modification." 



This is the kernel of the new theory, the Dar- 

 winian creed, as recited at the close of the introduc- 

 tion to the remarkable book under consideration. 

 The questions, " What will he do with it ? " and 

 " How far will he carry it ? " the author answers at 

 the close of the volume : 



" I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modifica- 

 tion embraces all the.merabers of the same class." Furthermore, 

 "I believe that all animals have descended from at most only 

 four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser 

 number." 



Seeing that analogy as strongly suggests a further 

 step in the same direction, while he protests that 

 " analogy may be a deceitful guide," yet he follows 

 its inexorable leading to the inference that — 



"Probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on 

 this earth have descended from some one primordial form, into 

 which life was first breathed." * • 



* Page 484, English edition. In the new American edition {vide 

 Supplement, pp. 431, 432) the principal analogies which suggest the 



