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 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 tending— this 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 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).

adr Tris, selected, as we susamper. So vague are they m sees hazardous; neverthefers interpretation, that in the smprovement in animals

of man is the point at which yo which they will approximate. its a question which Mr able, the origin and the first

in this system man was not trilled out of another form, the basics of exterminated Nove the ge and the man. ad on are the rest of changes sl. kres nd carried on during The intellect, conscience, vir▼ sell ridection, and religion Ni ai aceumulations carefully

...

tten, vie ked of the less

na nd, wid with these attributes.

mx Asgei de his place in nature, than Tik Pertsales & sitemare of line on the inside of a

konania imponements, preserved in advancing was nowhead ne no lost of man, and the whole of his jegulation overspending to his intellectual character. Mes mad and Sacier are the result of tokenles of matter put 1.20 new sripes and places, and as he was not created, but evided, or developed, he is not a creature ac

unable to his maker, fr, indeed, he has no moker, nor ein a sense of right or wrong, or any moral feeling in man, be considered anything but the motions of cereal im

• Professor Solgwick m the Studies of the Calversity of Cambridge

pulse, or some yet unexplained action of galvanism or chemical power.

With such an origin of the sense of duty, how can he be certain that his ethical determinations are based on any firm foundation? or that they are more than temporary impressions on the brain, which may have to undergo further changes, and so be brought to entertain new apprehensions of things? If the rationale of morals depends on a correct anatomy of the human mind, and an intimate acquaintance with the affections, passions, and sentiments of the human heart; and if the human mind has been produced not long ago (speaking geologically) by its altered anatomy, how is it possible to be certain of the rectitude of moral precepts, as they are at present accepted, unless it be also mathematically certain that the human anatomy is to change no more? But it is by no means certain that the intellectual, moral, and physical qualities of man are stationary. They may change according to this theory, so that a future advanced man may be as far above the present man in his organization and mental apparatus as the negro is above the gorilla.

Therefore we are not justified in affirming that the susceptibilities of moral emotion, in consequence of which actions of a moral character are regarded with powerful feelings of approval or condemnation, are permanent qualities of the human mind. Moreover, it is certain that the mind of man has not been formed for the object of discerning what is right and approving it. If it does so it is an accidental circumstance, it is merely a Sequence of Events as ascertained by us, and therefore other events taking place in the general arrangements of the human organization may alter altogether the mental impressions, and produce other moral conceptions of an entirely new character.

Now, as man is the standard of intellect and virtue, and as man is not created, but developed out of unintelligent antecedent matter, without any superintending design, it is clear that intellect proceeds from non-intellect, and that virtue is the result of blind matter put into certain shapes, positions, and relations by chemical or mechanical

action.

Moral rectitude is a mere result of a modification of matter, analogous to the growth of mould in a cheese: let the organization that produces it be re-modified, and the result will be different.

Mr Darwin, indeed, anticipates that his system will introduce an entirely new era of psychology. In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirements of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history' (523).

Whether this brief account of the moral attributes of man, as logically deduced from the Theory, may be a foreshadowing of the new psychology we will not venture to say, but that it is a true history of man's origin in the genesis of the Transmutationists is indisputable. Psychology, nevertheless, seems to be a word but ill-fitted to the doctrine of this school; a soul cannot be developed from the changed flesh and bones of an ape; somatology, therefore, is the more appropriate term for this system-as the organization has changed by 'gradations,' so has the character of the animal man changed by gradations: and perhaps many thousands of experimental species of men were exterminated before man was produced with his present

faculties.