56 
Mr. Darwin, apparently, does not see this; and hence his 
resort to infinitely numerous atoms, together with all the 
inconsistency into which these lead him. 
When we follow this naturalist into the region of true natural 
history we find that his notions lack evidence, as they lack 
coherence when we compare them among themselves. In doing 
so it is necessary to keep in mind that it is not the mere mean- 
ing of the word “ species ” after which Darwfin is really in 
search. Neither is it the mere development of one species from 
another, when he has determined that ‘‘’species” and “variety” 
are identical in nature. In order to discover anything to the 
purpose of his theory, he must point out some such way back 
in the history of actual living creatures as can truthfully enable 
us to connect them (through natural generation) with similar 
creatures that lived in other ages ; so that, comparing these two 
sets of beings, we shall have proof that there has been an ad- 
vance in the scale of life somewhat like that by which an ape 
would prove the progenitor of a man, or, if you will, that by 
which a lowly savage would prove to have been the ancestor 
of the highly endowed among men at the present time. 
Mr. Darwin (we may say of necessity) appeals to geology 
in favour of his system ; and here too he finds “ the most ob- 
vious and serious objections ” to his theory.* But I humbly 
think that he misses that point of truth recorded by the rocks 
which fatally affects that theory. He dwells upon the “ imper- 
fections of the geological records,” as accounting for the absence 
of “ intermediate forms.” But that merely negative matter 
would be no objection at all if we had evidence of that gradation 
in any one form which is really essential to the truthfulness of 
evolutionary ideas. For example, if the most “ unequivocally 
ancient ” of human remains indicated such a type as that from 
which, in the course of countless ages, man might have been 
improved up to his present form, we should care very little for 
“ intermediate links.” But as Sir Charles Lyell so candidly 
tells us, the most ancient human skull discovered, belonging, 
according to most geologists, to long-past ages, is equal to the 
average of the best- developed variety of man now existing. 
That skull proves that man has neither grown stronger in 
muscle, nor better in brain, during all tho^e ages ; and indicates 
that, if anything, he has degenerated in physical development 
if not in intellectual also.t Then the same thing is true of all 
other forms as it is of that of man. To take the eozoon itself, 
the earliest of all discovered life among foraminifers, it is a 
giant, and of the grandest character among its kind. So is it 
* Origin of Species, p. 340. 
f See Antiquity of Man , p. 89, 1863. 
