taneous generation, and therefore has no origin for his system. His elephant stands upon a tortoise, and the tortoise upon nothing.

tinually being produced by spontaneous generation! I need hardly say that science in her present state does not countenance the belief that liv. ing creatures are now ever produced from inorganic matter' (135).

CHAPTER XVI.

THE CONCLUSION.

We have thus touched on the most important points of Mr Darwin's Theory, though it would have required a largely extended work to meet the numerous secondary arguments and collateral disquisitions in the Origin of Species.' The reader will remember that the main propositions of this Theory are:

1. That no organic being has been created.

2. That every plant and animal has been made by accidental minute changes taking place in the organization of antecedent forms.

3. That these changes, beneficial in result, but not in intention, have given the possessor an advantage in the struggle for life. The organized being with the advantageous accidental change has been enabled to live; the plant or animal not so favoured has been exterminated.

4. No plant or animal has been designed for any particular object or place in nature, but all have taken such a place as was open to them, and have maintained themselves as well as they can in their position.

5. Every existing plant or animal is struggling to maintain its place in nature. If others, near them in habits,

should arise, better organized, they would have to succumb and yield to the law of extermination.

6. This operation is called Natural Selection: it does not really construct or design anything; it only, by exterminating unimproved animals, preserves new improvements in organized beings.

7. Natural Selection, when correctly stated, is 'the Sequence of Events as ascertained by us.'

8. Facts or events having followed one another in an ascertained sequence explain the existence of things. Organized beings have become what they are, because they are so. Existence is an absolute fact without a cause.

9. There is no such thing as Species: there is no fixed and permanent division amongst plants and animals.

10. All varieties are in the act of becoming* species. New forms of plants and animals are now in the progress of evolving out of existing forms, by accidental beneficial changes, and the process of extermination.

11. Beauty in the works of Nature has not been produced by an intentional arrangement. If any plant or animal is beautiful it is an accident.

12. All organized beings are slowly advancing towards perfection. There will be a period when there will be no more change; that is, when all plants and animals will have obtained absolute perfection.

This creed, of which perhaps the last article is the most · surprising, is nevertheless well-considered as a whole. The first point of advantage to gain was, of course, by an attack on the fixedness of Nature's works, without which

* Here, then, is a contradiction between the 9th and 10th proposition, for if there be no species in nature, varieties cannot of course be advancing towards species. This contradiction has been seen more at large in the third chapter.

the Theory could not advance one inch; and for this reason we have the elaborate special pleading against Species, in which Mr Darwin has as frequently asserted as he has denied the point he was combating. It is against Species that all the Transmutationists begin, for unless this obstacle can be removed they can do nothing. Lamarck, the author of Vestiges, Pouchet, Trémaux, &c., all turn the tide of their logic against Species-and the most vehement of them all, Mr Darwin-but Species still remains unmoved as firm as the everlasting hills, and all the impetus of this sophistry expends itself in froth and foam, without accomplishing anything.

However, this is the beginning of the Theory, to talk down Species if possible; and then, having made a clear stage, to go on with transformations and metamorphoses, without restraint. But then the question would arise, what is to be the end of all this continual move in the forms of life? What are they all to come to at last? Will there be dragons, centaurs, mermaids, and satyrs again? Is mutation to go on for ever, elaborating we know not what? To this inquiry Mr Darwin has given an answer by settling a terminus to which everything is tendingthis terminus to be reached, in an unknown series of ages, is absolute perfection. When organized beings shall have arrived at that point, Nature will have reached her Sabbath, -Natural Selection will cease from her work of carnage; after the extermination of infinite millions of organized beings, more numerous than the figures of arithmetic can express, she will retire from the scene to take her great reward in the Paradise of Metaphors. Every plant will be perfect, and every animal perfect, though, whether animals will feed on plants or on one another as they do at present,

the author of this prophecy has not revealed to us.

:

Neither

do we know whether there will be distinction between carnivorous and graminivorous animals; nor whether men will have wings, and animals will talk in short, we do not know how animals are to be more perfect than they are. Here, however, as usual in this Theory, a great designthe greatest indeed that can possibly be imagined—is to be effected without a designer and without the execution of a plan. But as Mr Darwin has, throughout his system, been well content to affirm that perfect works have been made without a maker, and without the exercise of intellect, he can have no difficulty in bringing everything to an imaginary perfection by the same non-means. It is indeed

a sequence of Transmutation logic that it should be so.

Mr Darwin feels that the most advanced organization is that of man, and therefore he seems to hint that in the great and final palingenesy of his system, animals will have a chance of becoming men, or at any rate very like them.

To this, however, the allusion is in brief and guarded terms*-intellect and an approach in structure to man I clearly come into play'-clearly come into play! if Mr Darwin would have made this most important point a little more clear' it would have been much to the satisfaction of his readers. There is scarcely anything that he has told us more interesting than this, as it turns on the future destiny of animals; and yet, all that we can learn

*The ultimate result will be that each creature will tend to become more and more improved in relation to its conditions of life. This improvement will, I think, inevitably lead to the gradual advancement of the organization of the greater number of living beings throughout the world. But here we enter on a very intricate subject, for naturalists have not defined to each other's satisfaction what is meant by advance in organization. Among the vertebrata the degree of intellect and an approach in structure to man clearly come into play' (131).