THIRD day's sitting. 73 



Lord G. Do you think, Mr. Darwin, that science alone 

 ■will account for the existence of man ? Has a Creator 

 never intervened ? 



Darwin. I do not assert, my Lord, that a Creator has 

 never intervened. 



■ Homo. In his work on "The Origin of Species," my Lord, 

 Mr. Darwin says, " There is a grandeur in this view of life, 

 with its several powers, having been originally breathed by 

 the Creator into a few forms or into one." I do not find, 

 in his present work, any such acknowledgment of the in- 

 tervention of a Creator. He says, " the idea of a universal 

 and beneficent Creator of the universe does not seem to 

 arise in the mind of man, until he has been elevated by 

 long-continued culture." (Vol. ii., p. 395.) But whether or 

 not he now regards this idea of a Creator as a correct one, 

 does not appear. 



Lord G. It will be but just to Mr. Darwin to regard him 

 as retaining his formerly avowed belief in a Creator, until 

 he expressly repudiates it. 



Homo. I quite agree with your Lordship, and have certainly 

 not the least desire to do injustice to Mr. Darwin. I cannot 

 understand, however, why, in his present work, which seems 

 as much as his former one to lead to the subject, he does 

 not again indicate his belief in the intervention of the 

 Creator. I suppose he feels that the weak point of his 

 argument is just here. For, if he admits that the 

 Creator must have breathed life " into a few forms," why 

 may not man have been one of these forms ? I might, 

 besides, ask Mr. Darwin if it be a "scientific explana- 

 tion" to assert that the Creator has breathed life into 

 any form whatever? Mr. Darwin himself falls away 

 from " scientific explanation " when he brings in the 

 Creator* 



F 



