84 Remarks on the Theories of PT. n. 



he has succeeded in forming even a plausible one. 

 In order to carry out his system, and to give time 

 for the operation of those agents of Natural Selec- 

 tion and Sexual Selection, he finds it necessary to 

 press -into the service the whole series of Geological 

 periods about which we know so little ; at the same 

 time he constantly admits what he calls the c Imper- 

 fection of the Geological Record,' as an apology for 

 the inconclusiveness of his arguments. Our existing 

 world, with its short experience of some 4,000 years, 

 affords him no foundation. Here we everywhere see 

 what appears to our benighted reason irrefragable 

 proofs of design ; here we everywhere see forms of 

 Life the most varied yet everywhere the most 

 adapted to their several purposes ; but nowhere do 

 we see those agents of Natural Selection or Sexual 

 Selection effecting any considerable results. The 

 Earth does not exhibit at this epoch any instance of 

 a new creation. Varieties may be produced by the 

 skill of Man, which is itself a sort of Intellectual 

 First Cause, but a new creation of the animal king- 

 dom can nowhere be produced. All those products 

 of the most wonderful and elaborate contrivance 

 must have been gradually evolved out of nothing, 

 by a process of Natural Selection which Mr. Darwin 



