REVIEWS—ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. 369 
in these varied repetitions, so to say, of the CREATIVE THOUGHT; 
and the transmutation theory, with all Mr. Darwin's ingenious and 
eloquent reasonings, offers to us no real help in our difficulty. We 
yield willing homage to the unquestionable ability which his book dis- 
plays in so many of its details; we go with him most willingly to a 
certain point, but there our steps are arrested by obstacles that we 
are altogether unable tosurmount. In his introductory observations, 
for example, we find the following statements : 
“ Although much remains obscure, and will long remain obscure, I can entertain 
no doubt, after the most deliberate study and dispassionate Judginent 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—ie 
erroneous. iam 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 
varieties of any one species are the descendants of that species.” 
Now, if the author had confined himself to these hmits; if he had 
sought, by his laboricus collection of facts and his skilful deductions, 
to prove the truth of his opinicn as here expressed—using the term 
species, not in its absolute or normal sense, but as limited by our 
present knowledge—many, we think, who cannot honestly follow him 
farther, would have become his willing disciples. That various so- 
called genera have merely the right to rank as species, we firmly be- 
lieve, and cenfidently look forward to such researches as those in which 
Mr. Darwin is engaged, to afford direct proofs of this conclusion * 
Thus far then we are prepared to listen trustfully to Mr. Darwin’s 
teachings, but when he seeks to carry his applications beyond this, we 
lose our cenvictions ; certain broad and apparently insurmountable 
barriers stand up before us ; and we find ourselves unable to believe, 
for example, in the probability of a true transition-link between the 
carnivorous, retractile-clawed Felidze, and the four-stomached, hoofed, 
and herbivorous sheep: and yet this is nothing to what the theory 
advocated in Mr. Darwin’s book would impose upon us. 
* It is somewhat remarkable, that, with regard to genera and species, the Inorganic sub- 
division of Natural History should differ so completely from the Organic branches of that 
study. That which to the majority of Mineralogists is simply a species, to the Botanist and 
Zoologist would rank as a genus, and be subdivided into species and varieties. Mineralogy 
was at one time, in this respect it is true, in unison with these other departments; but not- 
withstanding various attempts from time to time, to raise its varieties into species, and to 
bestow upon these latter, “Natural History” names, the broader and more philosophie 
view has long prevailed. 
Vou. V. 2c 
