DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 161 



inquires into the form of the miracle, may remind us 

 that all recorded miracles (except the primal creation 

 of matter) were transformations or actions in and up- 

 on natural things, and will ask how many times and 

 how frequently may the origination of successive spe- 

 cies be repeated before the supernatural merges in the 

 natural. 



In short, Darwin maintains that the origination of 

 a species, no less than that of an individual, is natural ; 

 the reviewer, that the natural origination of an indi- 

 vidual, no less than the origination of a species, re- 

 quires and presupposes Divine power. A. fortiori, 

 then, the origination of a variety requires and presup- 

 poses Divine power. And so between the scientific 

 hypothesis of the one and the philosophical concep- 

 tion of the other no contrariety remains. And so, 

 concludes the North American reviewer, " a proper 

 view of the nature of causation .... places the 

 vital doctrine of the being and the providence of a 

 God on ground that can never be shaken." * A wor- 

 thy conclusion, and a sufficient answer to the denun- 

 ciations and arguments of the rest of the article, so far 

 as philosophy and natural theology are concerned. If 

 a writer must needs use his own favorite dogma as a 

 weapon with which to give coup de grace to a perni- 

 cious theory, he should be careful to seize his edge- 

 tool by the handle, and not by the blade. 



We can barely glance at a subsidiary philosophical 

 objection of the North American reviewer, which the 

 Examiner also raises, though less explicitly. Like 

 all geologists, Mr. Darwin draws upon time .in the 



1 North American Review, loc. cit., p. 604. 



