OBJECTIONS TO THE THEORY OF DESCENT. 349 



structed forms, so different from each other, and depend- 

 ent upon each other in so complex a manner, have all 

 been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, 

 taken in the largest sense, being growth with reproduc- 

 tion ; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduc- 

 tion ; variability from the indirect and direct action of the 

 conditions of life, and from use and disuse : a ratio of 

 increase so high as to lead to a struggle for life, and as a 

 consequence to natural selection, entailing diyergence of 

 character and the extinction of less-improved forms. 

 Thus, fi:om the war of nature, from famine and death, 

 the most exalted, object which we are capable of conceiv- 

 ing, namely, the production of the higher animals, direct- 

 ly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with 

 its several powers, having been originally breathed by the 

 Creator into a few forms or into one ; and that, while 

 this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law 

 of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most 

 beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being 

 evolved. 



NOT INCOMPATIBLE WITH THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 



Descent ^ ^'^ aware that the assumed instinctive 



of Man, belief in God has been used by many persons 

 page 612. ^ ^^ argument for his existence. But this is 

 a rash argument, as we should thus be compelled to be- 

 lieve in the existence of many cruel and malignant spirits, 

 only a little more powerful than man ; for the belief in 

 them is far more general than in a beneficent Deity. The 

 idea of a universal and beneficent Creator does not seem 

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

 by long-continued culture. 



He who believes in the advancement of man from 



