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doctrine of “ single centres of creation” — or as, to suit his special 
theory, they ought perhaps to be called, single centres of birth. He 
believes that each new species came into being at some one spot only, 
and that, however wide may be its distribution now, such distribution 
has been due wholly to dispersion. “ If the same species,” he says, 
“ can be produced at two separate points, why do we not find a 
single mammal common to Europe, Australia, and South America? 
The conditions of life are nearly the same.” But surely this belief 
in single centres of creation or of birth is not very easily reconcilable 
with the rest of Mr Darwin’s theory. The essential idea of that 
theory is, that new species arise from any accidental variety which 
enables the animal possessing it to have some special advantage in 
the struggle for existence. But, as similar modifications of struc- 
ture would in this respect confer similar advantages, at one time or 
other, under some circumstances or other all over the globe, it is 
impossible to understand why they should not frequently arise at 
many different points, either at once, or in succession. We may freely 
grant, therefore, to Mr Darwin that his reasoning explains to us how 
a given species, once born , and which begins the battle of life under 
favourable conditions, should rapidly spread, and should extinguish 
its congeners and predecessors, which are less favourably endowed. 
But it gives us no sort of explanation, or even suggestion, of the law 
under vjhich any such new species is first produced. How such a 
new birth comes to be determined, and above all how it can only be 
determined at some one spot of all the million spots on which the 
same parents flourish, remains as profound a mystery as before ; and 
we have in reality not advanced a single step towards the “ origin 
of species.” 
The conclusions arrived at by Mr Darwin are essentially but 
another form of the old theory of development, and as such they 
will meet with the same vigorous resistance. We may cordially 
join in the warning of Professor Huxley, that the arguments of 
such a naturalist as Mr Darwin must be met on scientific grounds 
alone. And yet the difficulty, to use no stronger word, of recon- 
ciling this theory when applied to man, with all that we know of his 
physical and moral nature, and all that we have hitherto believed 
respecting his early history, is at least one among the many diffi- 
culties which may well call for the most jealous and critical analysis 
of every step in Mr Darwin’s argument. He himself, indeed, seems 
