130 HOMO V. DAEWIN. 



my Lord, be suitable for a lesson-book to be introduced 

 into our National Schools ? Would it help to educate 

 the rising race in morals, were they led to consider the 

 case in which it might be a sacred duty with sisters to kill 

 their brothers ? Would it also tend to strengthen their 

 compassion for the maimed, the suffering, and the sick, 

 were they taught that, though their care would be wrongly 

 directed, if directed towards them, and would tend to the 

 deterioration of the race, yet they could not check their 

 feelings of sympathy towards them without deterioration in 

 the noblest part of their nature ? Would such lessons in 

 morals, my Lord, given to the rising generation, tend to 

 their advancement and elevation ? 



Lord G. I fear it would not be easy to induce any English 

 constituency to elect Mr. Darwin to the School Board. 



Homo. Especially, my Lord, if, in his address to the 

 electors, he were to quote these passages as setting forth 

 his views on conscience and morals. The common sense 

 of Englishmen would revolt from them. Mr. Darwin, my 

 Lord, has more faith in " Natural Selection," and in the 

 process of " Elimination," by which the weak in body and 

 mind are gradually killed off — he has more faith in these 

 processes as tending to human advancement than he has in 

 the " Omnipotent God," whom he tells us it is " ennobling " 

 to believe in. 



Lord G. Are you not rather hard on Mr. Darwin in 

 Baying so ? 



Homo. I think not, my Lord. The whole tendency 

 of his book is to eliminate the Divine Being from among 

 his works, and to set up Natural Selection in his place. 

 According to Mr. Darwin, the "Omnipotent God" does 

 nothing, except, perhaps, create at first. He then withdraws 

 from the imiverse, and, for aught that appears, goes to 



