io8 LUCK, OR CUNNING? 



" He who believes in separate and innumerable acts 

 of creation," &c. We tberefore understand descent to 

 be the theory so frequently spoken of by Mr. Darwin 

 as ' my. 



Again : — 



" He who will go thus far, if he find on finishing 

 this treatise that large bodies of facts, otherwise in- 

 explicable, can be explained hy the theory of descent, 

 ought not to hesitate to go farther, and to admit 

 that a structure even as perfect as an eagle's eye 

 might be formed iy natural selection, although in this 

 case he does not know any of the transitional grades " 

 (p. 188). 



The natural inference from this is that descent and 

 natural selection are one and the same thing. 



Again : — 



"If it could be demonstrated that any complex 

 organ existed which could not possibly have been 

 formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, 

 my theory would absolutely break down. But I can 

 find out no such case. No doubt many organs exist 

 of which we do not know the transitional grades, more 

 especially if we look to much-isolated species, round 

 which, according to my theory, there has been much 

 extinction" (p. 189). 



This makes "my theory" to be "the theory that 

 complex organs have arisen by numerous, successive, 

 slight modifications ; " that is to say, to be the theory 

 of descent with modification. The first of the two 

 "my theory's" in the passage last quoted has been 

 allowed to stand. The second became "the theory" 



