79 
it means only “all but one” ov as Mr. Warington himself 
prefers — less consistent than even the distracted Hamlet ! — all 
means all living beings, excepting some eight or ten progeni- 
tors ; and thus going per saltum, and I fear unphilosophically 
as well as illogically, from the very condition precedent he 
had laid down,— namely, all or nothing, — he proceeds to his 
second inquiry as to “ adequacy.” In fact, you will find that 
now the theory does not “run on all fours ** to any purpose, 
or even with itself. It really does not account for the origin 
of species at all ! It asks you first to give it four or five pro- 
genitors for animals and four or five for plants, and then it 
can go ahead. The theory is “ possible,” in Mr. Warington* s 
opinion, if you will merely grant that “species vary,” and 
that their variations “ frequently have a bearing on their 
adaptation to the circumstances of their life,” &c. To which 
I reply, this is excellent reasoning to account for new varieties, 
or let me again concede for perhaps new species; but how 
does it account for the origin of species ? It might account 
for “ some races,” and “ some specific differences ” ; but that 
“ is very far from satisfying the hypothesis, which is not that 
some races have thus originated, but that all have.” 
This is Mr. Warington* s own refutation of his own argu- 
ment. But this argument had been preceded by other obiter 
dicta equally self- contradictory. For instance, this : — “ There 
is a perpetual struggle for existence going on, both among 
rival races and rival individuals ; and this struggle must lead 
to selection .” But then this so-called selection merely follows 
the struggle among the rival races and rival individuals that 
are presupposed to exist. It does not account for their origin. 
And before we get into this crowd of races and rivals, even an 
“ unprotected female ” might have been safe, and not forced 
to make struggles for life ! Surely the four or five progeni- 
tors at most of plants and of animals would not, on the face 
of this wide, wide world, have felt themselves subject to over- 
crowding and jostling and struggling, either for position or 
subsistence ! 
But Mr. Warington, who has madG up his mind to the long 
geological periods, though he objects — I think very properly 
— to the geologists* special and detached creations, quite 
omitted to tell us whether the four or five plants of Mr. Darwin* s 
theory were specially first created, and if so, how long it was 
after them that the four or five animals were next also specially 
created ; or if they were all specially created together ? And 
this is no idle question, intended merely to puzzle a Darwinian 
to say what he really finds intelligible in the hypothesis he 
submits to us as credible. For, let me ask this further ques- 
