Chap. XV. Conclusion. 423 



a certain number of facts will certainly reject the theory. A few- 

 naturalists, endowed with much flexibility of mind, and who have 

 already begun to doubt the immutability of species, may be in- 

 fluenced by this volume ; but I look with confidence to the future, — 

 to young and rising naturalists, who will be able to view both sides 

 of the question with impartiality. Whoever is led to believe that 

 species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously ex- 

 pressing his conviction; for thus only can the load of prejudice by 

 which this subject is overwhelmed be removed. 



Several eminent naturalists have of late published their belief 

 that a multitude of reputed species in each genus are not real 

 species ; but that other species are real, that is, have been inde- 

 pendently created. This seems to me a strange conclusion to 

 arrive at. They admit that a multitude of forms, which till lately 

 they themselves thought were special creations, and which are still 

 thus looked at by the majority of naturalists, and which conse- 

 quently have all the external characteristic features of true species, 

 — they admit that these have been produced by variation, but they 

 refuse to extend the same view to other and slightly different forms. 

 Nevertheless they do not pretend that they can define, or even 

 conjecture, which are the created forms of life, and which are those 

 produced by secondary laws. They admit variation as a vera causa 

 in one case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning 

 any distinction in the two cases. The day will come when this 

 will be given as a curious illustration of the blindness of precon- 

 ceived opinion. These authors seem no more startled at a mira- 

 culous act of creation than at an ordinary birth. But do they 

 really believe that at innumerable periods in the earth's history 

 certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash 

 into living tissues ? Do they believe that at each supposed act of 

 creation one individual or many were produced? Were all the 

 infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as eggs or 

 seed, or as full grown ? and in the case of mammals, were they 

 created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's 

 womb? Undoubtedly some of these same questions cannot be 

 answered by those who believe in the appearance or creation of only 

 a few forms of life, or of some one form alone. It has been main- 

 tained by several authors that it is as easy to believe in the creation 

 of a million beings as of one; but Maupertuis' philosophical 

 axiom "of least action " leads the mind more willingly to admit 

 the smaller number ; and certainly we ought not to believe that 

 innumerable beings within each great class have been created 

 with plain, but deceptive, marks of descent from a single parent. 



