78 VARIATIONS, DUE TO REVERSION. 



nal, spontaneous impulses, when they first arose, and 

 formed the fiver ! 



The lock-master declares, that these spontaneous im- 

 pulses never did form the river, but that Darwin him- 

 self started to prove that very point ; and now, instead 

 of proving it, he assumes it to obviate a fatal objection 

 to that very idea. He also shows him that he cannot 

 prove the origin of the river by means of the spontane- 

 ous impulses in the lock, for they are due to the action 

 of a river already formed. Darwin, however, is proof 

 against all objections, and departs to assure his friend 

 Tyndall that his theory, about "giving the religious sen- 

 timents of mankind, reasonable satisfaction," is alto- 

 gether Utopian. 



So, in his theory of development, he assumes his 

 very conclusion — viz., that variations formed the differ- 

 ent species — to ward off the objection, namely, that 

 variations did not constitute the process of develop- 

 ment, because they are but the regain of developments 

 lost. 



As all of the individuals of a species have, gener- 

 ally, lost the same characters, and all have the same 

 capacity for regaining such characters, it is to be ex- 

 pected, that the individuals of the several varieties of 

 such species, will not confine themselves to the devel- 

 opment of the peculiarities which man has assigned 

 them, but will display their power of reversion in char- 

 acters, of their species, other than those which mark 

 their respective varieties. The fact, also, that similar 

 varieties are produced in different countries, from indi- 

 viduals of the same species, attests strongly, that the 



