296 CREATION BY LAW. 
claim to be new, is of the same nature as the difficulty 
of distinguishing varieties and species, because neither 
are absolute new creations, but both are alike de- 
scendants of pre-existing forms, from which and from 
each other they differ by varying and often imper- 
ceptible degrees. It appears, then, that however plau- 
sible this writer’s objections may seem, whenever he 
descends from generalities to any specific statement, 
his supposed difficulties turn out to be in reality 
strongly confirmatory of Mr. Darwin’s view. 
The ** Times,” on Natural Selection. 
The extraordinary misconception of the whole sub- 
ject by popular writers and reviewers, is well shown 
by an article which appeared in the Times news- 
paper on “The Reign of Law.” Alluding to the 
supposed economy of nature, in the adaptation of 
each species to its'own place and its special use, the 
reviewer remarks: ‘ To this universal law of the 
greatest economy, the law of natural selection stands 
in direct antagonism as the law of ‘ greatest possible 
waste’ of time and of creative power. To conceive 
a duck with webbed feet and a spoon-shaped bill, 
living by suction, to pass naturally into a gull with 
webbed feet and a knife-like bill, living on flesh, in 
the longest possible time and in the most laborious 
possible way, we may conceive it to pass from the 
one to the other state by natural selection. The battle 
of life the ducks will have to fight will increase in 
peril continually as they cease (with the change of 
