31 
Mr. Darwin has never yet asserted to be his belief, and which 
may be expressed briefly thus : that - the origin of species by 
natural selection is not subject to higher law ” A few sen 
fences m the Origin of Species and one strong protest in his 
Descent of Man are all, as far as I can remember, that he has 
uttered. It is to be deeply regretted ; for I believe I am right 
in saying that in his indifference to preconceived prejudices in 
his fearless exposition of what he believes to be the truth 3 he 
has raised a great stumbling-block to the general acceptance of 
the theory of evolution, which, though no doubt destined ulti- 
mately to hold sway, yet has been retarded in its progress by 
one of its greatest advocates. J 
an illustration of an utter perversion of interpretation 
of Mr Darwin and others’ writings, I take the following sen- 
fence from Bishop Perry’s Science and the Bible, who, speaking 
of The Vestiges of Creation , The Origin of Species , and Pro- 
toplasm, thus writes If I have spoken of these three works 
with severity, it has been because the object of the writers ob- 
Bible^l ^ t0 pr0( * UCe * n tlie ^ r rea( ^ ers a disbelief of the 
Notwithstanding that I am attempting to place Mr. Darwin 
on a right footing with his numerous misjudging readers I 
must take him to task for misjudging himself. He tells us 
he does not believe in design ; but I find in his work that he 
believes in the Creator, “Whose works far surpass those of 
man. What can that sentence imply but an intuitive recogni- 
tion of the very basis of the argument for design? Mr. Darwin 
can no more throw off those feelings than Lotze. God’s works 
may have been evolved, and not directly created; but, take 
creation as we find it, and design defies us everywhere ! It is 
so ely on design, and nothing else, that we recognize the 
superiority of nature s works, and that superiority forces us to 
acknowledge their author as God. 
W hen Mr. Darwin makes that solemn protest wherein he 
says (Descent of Man yol. ii. p. 396), “The birth both of the 
species and the individual are equally parts of that <*rand 
uTr f bln ts which ™ our r ds ref “ se to acce p‘ -the 
result of blind chance. The understanding revolts at such a 
s C li"h U vart7 heth f er i° r V W V re aMe t0 belie - ftat every 
r £ T T °^. structure, the union of each pair in mar- 
W aVheef ,SS 7- Ina u 10 r n ° f 6ach seed ’- aud other such events, 
sequencers ir daine f (° r S ° me ? pecial P ur P ose ” he recognizes 
design Mr T) 35 - the wiU of God,-and that is 
l g : P™ , beheves it in spite of himself, though 
orga ilm 1 d ' dlsbel,eve ln a s P ecial act of creation for each 
