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which, however far they exceed, we steadily repeat they never 
contradict. Neither shall we consent that those theorists who, 
in the name of science, affect to deny the philosophy of our 
Origin, shall themselves be unexamined. The newly formu- 
lated scheme of Lamarck and others, put forth with so much 
skill and attractiveness of style by Mr. Darwin, must submit to 
be questioned as closely as the rejectors of super-naturalism 
would question ours. We deny that their scheme is reason; 
we deny that it is science. 
We first would ask distinctly what it means ? — for though 
there are some passages fearfully plain indeed in Mr Darwin’s 
last book, there is so much of hint, guess, and pretension 
pervading it, that its drift is generally slightly veiled. If 
the book were all as outspoken as a few passages are, the 
reader would not be unawares influenced towards a conclusion 
hostile to his whole faith as a believer in the Scriptures. He 
would pause, and make his choice, and not allow himself to 
treat as innocent or generally useful a work which to the mass 
of readers must be misleading, even when to others instruc- 
tive and amusing. 
We have a right to know, for instance, whether the “ evolu- 
tion ” and (i natural selection ” spoken of, would be meant to 
deny a Supreme Cause of all, Who is above and beyond all ? 
If this be not the meaning, what is Mr. Darwin’s philosophy ? 
Would he by these terms persuade us of an eternal cycle of 
ever-revolving being, proceeding from nearly nothing, up to 
the highest moral and intellectual life, and back again to 
nothing ? His own instructor apparently, in some things, 
whom he not unjustly calls “ our great philosopher,” would 
not support him here. Mr. Herbert Spencer has exposed, as 
thoroughly as a careful thinker could possibly do it, the ten- 
dency of both philosophers and men of science to mistake 
analysis for synthesis. He, at least, is not guilty of ignoring 
the problem of pre-phenomenal being, and would be the first 
to rebuke the shallow fancy that to accumulate facts, and hint 
about them eloquently,- is philosophy. 
XIX. It may be useful, as we too must select, to dwell more 
fully perhaps on Mr. Darwin’s hypotheses than on Mr . Darwin’s 
some others at the present moment, as they have a appeal to “rea- 
. .. 1 . ini Ti. son’ examined. 
popularity among an extensive class ot readers. It 
is well to show, at all events, that so far as this able naturalist 
attempts a history of our Origin and Descent he fails. Let us, 
then, hear the great writer to whom he sometimes appeals. 
“An entire history of anything” (says Mr. Herbert Spencer) “must in- 
clude its appearance out of the imperceptible, and its disappearance into the 
