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DARWIN'S FACTS. 



[FROM THE "RECORD."} 



SlB, The absurdities that are swallowed by the disciples of 

 Darwin would really be past belief if we had not the fact before 

 us in black and white. 



That would not matter, if it was not for the wretched Infidelity 

 into which, in consequence, too many have fallen. 



Mr. Darwin has recently published another work entitled 

 " The different Forms of Flowers on Plants of the same 

 Species." 



I have not got the book, and do not mean to get it. I have seen 

 quite enough of it in a congenial review hi a copy of the 

 Guardian newspaper. 



I have no doubt it con tarns, as his other works do, a great 

 number of interesting facts. These are all very well ; but not 

 only is the connection between them and his conclusions 

 altogether wanting for the most part, but all his so-called facts 

 are not facts ; and if so, the inferences that he draws from them 

 fall to the ground. 



I could give you other instances of this, but will take only 

 one from the said review in the Guardian. The reviewer 

 states one of Darwin's " facts " about plants, as follows : " To 

 secure their visits" (z.e., those of insects) "they dress them- 

 selves up in gay colours to draw attention, except when the 

 visitors they expect are night-flying moths, in which case they 

 prefer to robe in virgin white, which is most readily seen through 

 the darkness." 



Now all this is mere fancy, and part of it the reverse of fact. 



He assumes, to begin, that the organs of sight in insects are 

 the same as our own, of which he offers no proof whatever, and 

 no doubt they are wonderfully different. 



But, on this, his fact is the very opposite of fact, for while on a 

 fine summer evening you will see moths in numbers hovering at 

 the blossoms of the deep-coloured martagon lily, and many other 

 such, as for instance, even the net lie and the burdock,- it is only 

 very rarely, scarcely ever in comparison, that you will see one 



