NOTE-BOOK OF 1837. 9 



second is especially interesting, as it contains the germ of 

 the concluding sentence of the ' Origin of Species ' : * 



" Before the attraction of gravity discovered it might have 

 been said it was as great a difficulty to account for the 

 movement of all [planets] by one law, as to account for each 

 separate one ; so to say that all mammalia were born from 

 one stock, and since distributed by such means as we can 

 recognise, may be thought to explain nothing. 



"Astronomers might formerly have said that God fore- 

 ordered each planet to move in its particular destiny. In the 

 same manner God orders each animal created with certain 

 forms in certain countries ; but how much more simple and 

 sublime [a] power let attraction act according to certain 

 law, such are inevitable consequences let animals be created, 

 then by the fixed laws of generation, such will be their 

 successors. 



" Let the powers of transportal be such, and so will be the 

 forms of one country to another let geological changes go at 

 such a rate, so will be the number and distribution of the 

 species ! ! " 



The three next extracts are of miscellaneous interest : 



" When one sees nipple on man's breast, one does not say 

 some use, but sex not having been determined so with useless 

 wings under elytra of beetles born from beetles with wings, 

 and modified if simple creation merely, would have been 

 born without them." 



" In a decreasing population at any one moment fewer 

 closely related (few species of genera) ; ultimately few genera 

 (for otherwise the relationship would converge sooner), and 

 lastly, perhaps, some one single one. Will not this account 



* ' Origin of Species ' (edit, i.), p. cycling on according to the fixed 



490 : " There is a grandeur in this law of gravity, from so simple A 



view of life, with its several powers, beginning endless forms most 



having been originally breathed beautiful and most wonderful have 



into a few forms or into one ; and been, and are being evolved." 

 that whilst this planet has gone 



