56 



be wrong, and I must be right. I cannot for a moment allow 

 that any single created being is perfect ; I can only suggest 

 ideal improvements in every one of them, " beneficial changes in 

 a slight degree," and so on, and so on, and on, and on. 



I believe that all the correspondences in any creatures between 

 their organisation and instincts are purely accidental, and must 

 be so. All are explained by the " sequence of events," as ascer- 

 tained by me. 



I believe that a spider had at first no capacity for catching 

 insects, and that the instinct by which it makes its web was not 

 given to it for that purpose ; that carnivorous animals were not 

 designed to keep down others, that birds were not made for 

 living in trees, nor fishes in the sea, nor insects to act the 

 various parts they do, and that the plants of the earth were not 

 created for food for man or animals. No; all these things 

 are the results of blind chance acting at random through 

 incalculable ages of failures, the present end being at last hit 

 upon, all the predecessors of existing creatures having been 

 " exterminated " in the process. Design had nothing to do with 

 the results ; they all came of the " sequence of events." 

 Very good of them, was it not ? 



I believe that none of the beauties of creation were intended 

 to please the eye, or any other sense. " This doctrine, if true, 

 would, no doubt, as I have already said, be absolutely fatal to v/y 

 theory:" neither the colours of flowers, nor their scents, nor the 

 varied plumage of birds, nor their songs. No ; they are all 

 accidents, You must take them as you find them, and believe 

 me that they are all the results of the " sequence of events," 

 or the ''chapter of accidents," or any thing else you please, only 

 not of any studied plan. 



I believe, as I told you, that the beauty of the male birds is 

 to be attributed to the coquetry of the females, beginning with 

 their admiration of some eccentric feather till the whole pluina^- 

 followed suit, " fine by degrees," and " beautifully more." You 

 may call this a miserable puerility. So be it. I hold it to be 

 equal to the wisdom of Solomon, or if my modesty will allow me 

 to tell the whole truth, vastly superior to it. You want to ask 



