132 HOMO V. DARWIN. 



conscience, in such a creature as man, when rightly 

 exercised, must have reference to God's will. 



Lord G. Will Homo inform me if he has now anything 

 farther to advance ? 



Homo. Your Lordship has now before you the whole of 

 the particulars of the libel of which I complain. After 

 the patient attention given to those particulars by your 

 Lordship, I shall not attempt a reyiew of the case. I leave 

 it with your Lordship, satisfied that I shall be indemnified, 

 so far as is in your Lordship's power, for the injury inflicted 

 on me by the publication of the Defendant's book. I may 

 observe, however, that Mr. Darwin's speculations are in- 

 jurious also in this way — they lead others who are dissatisfied 

 with them into speculations of their own quite as wild and 

 visionary. Some scientific gentlemen are now actually en- 

 gaged in trying to create life ! Other men of science are 

 not so daring in their experiments, but they are quite as 

 audacious in their suggestions. They tell us that life may 

 have been imported into this planet on a meteoric stone ! 

 I suppose, my Lord, that after some more time has been 

 vainly expended m searching for the missing links of Evo- 

 lution, we shall be hearing that the first human pair were 

 charioted into our world on a shooting star ! 



Lord C. Speculations on the mystery of life are generally 

 so absurd that they speedily refute themselves. It is indeed 

 possible that germs of life may have been conveyed in 

 meteoric stones, but that life in our world was thus origin- 

 ated can never be proved. Besides, such a supposition 

 does not solve the mystery of life ; it but removes it one 

 step back, and renders it more than ever difiicult for us to 

 deal with. If life was not originated in our world, but 

 merely imported into it, our naturalists would require to 

 visit the world where it first appeared before they could be 



