branch of science been established by assertions only? is not a proof, such as the senses can appreciate, requisite in every step of legitimate science? has not geology taken its place amongst the noblest of the sciences by an appeal to facts, have not chemistry, astronomy, electricity, all advanced by rigid proof; and must we accept your system not by the process of proof but of special pleading? To all this Mr Darwin has one answer, we must believe. 'I see no difficulty in believing,' he has told us in scores of instances. If my Theory be true, it must be so: but my Theory is true, therefore it is so.*

This is a compendious statement of the expedient, on which everything depends. It is the body and soul of the whole system, but geology, with all the rocks of the world, annihilates it; all the series of strata from the most modern down to the Silurian formations overwhelm it with confutation, and though Nature be ransacked in all her corners, not a vestige of proof to corroborate this baseless Theory, can anywhere be discovered.

Mr Darwin has given us a text for our contemplation of Nature: Every organized being is trying to live where it

* If my Theory be true, it is indisputable that before the lowest Silurian stratum was deposited, long periods elapsed, as long as, or probably far longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian age to the present day, and that during these vast, yet quite unknown periods of time, the world swarmed with living creatures' (333).

And this most wild suggestion has been endorsed by Sir C. Lyell: "The oldest fossiliferous strata known to us, MAY BE the last of a long series of antecedent formations, which once contained organic beings.Antiquity of Man, 470.

When these learned gentlemen can fix their sheet-anchor in no firmer ground than this, that a conjecture may not be impossible, they must not be surprised if they suffer shipwreck. Professor Sedgwick has well observed, 'A theory is worse than nothing if it reflect not back the present condition of our knowledge. If it tell of laws neither proved nor suggested by the lessous of experiment and observation, it is nothing better than im posture.'-Studies of Cambridge, 71.

† And, again, 'Most of the animals and plants which live close round

can live' (224). Everywhere, according to him, there is a struggle, a scuffle, a vehement contention for life: plants and animals are driving and pushing in unceasing competition to maintain their existence; and Natural Selection is looking on with her murderous eyes to cut off the weakest. But what a dream is this! who ever suspected all this tumultuous tragedy in the serenity of Nature's appearances? every returning season introduces us again to our old friends, in the same places; Spring comes and brings with her the violet, the primrose, the cowslip quietly shining in their old haunts; the hyacinths and the orchises carpet the woods as usual; all the sweet flowers smile upon us with their 'quaint enamelled eyes' as they did on our forefathers; the little birds build their beautiful nests as of old, and the cuckoo tolls his bell in the groves as he did in the days of the Saxon Heptarchy. We can reckon on all the forms of life reappearing with certainty, in every country and every climate. We hear of no scuffle, we see no extermination; creatures most like one another seem to know nothing of this competition. Even the venomous snakes live in peace in the same regions with their* non-venomous congeners, and where the dangerous serpents abound others also abound that are comparatively innocuous. There are indeed the car

any small piece of ground may be said to be striving to the utmost to live there' (120). And, again, All organic beings are striving to seize on each place in the economy of nature' (107).

* In all cases the new and improved forms of life tend to supplant the old and unimproved forms' (304). The serpents with venom-fangs have received a most marked distinction amongst all the serpent tribe. This, in the Theory, has been effected by Natural Selection, who must have known much more than modern chemists, as they cannot give us an analysis of that fatal venom, nor tell us of what it is composed. But the serpents which had obtained this advantage ought to have exterminated all other serpents, not so endowed. This, indeed, they were well qualified to do, but nothing of the sort has taken place.

nivorous animals seeking their prey, but this arrangement is not on a design of extermination but of repression: and, however the hawks and other rapacious birds may prevail, we may be quite sure they will not exterminate the thrushes and the blackbirds; nor have we the slightest apprehension that the goldfinch, the robin red-breast, or the little wren will disappear, notwithstanding the terrors of Natural Selection.

In bidding farewell, then, to this subject we have examined Natural Selection with sufficient care to understand that it represents nothing, and is a mere play of words. The only real part of the Theory is Accidental Change and Extermination. There is no other agency. There is nothing that can select; no power, intellect, or existence of any sort, that can make any choice, or discriminate between the useful and the inexpedient.

The animal is represented as changing its organization spontaneously, and by slow degrees; the animal that does not change is exterminated. This is the whole machinery by which organized beings have been produced.

The term Natural Selection,' therefore, is superfluous, it is an illusion, an allegorical phantasy devoid of real meaning, and representing no fact. It ought to be entirely banished from the system, and from the title-page of Mr Darwin's book where it is offered as an alternative: Origin of Species, by means of Natural Selection; or, the preservation of favoured races in the Struggle for Life.' That is, we may take our choice between these two statements, which are proposed as equivalent. But the first is a misrepresentation, for species cannot derive their origin from that which has no real existence; and the second contains two errors: 1. The favoured races;' favoured by

whom, or by what? this expression implies selection and has a reference to the first part of the title. 2. The Struggle for Life' is a metaphor, which Mr Darwin cannot pretend is to be taken literally. Thus the title of the book has three metaphorical expressions, as an earnest of all that was to follow.

'The production of species by accident and extermination' would have expressed more correctly and truthfully the gist of the Treatise.

Mr Darwin has himself told us that Natural Selection is a metaphor, and yet on this basis has he argued all through his book, without even once availing himself of that definition which he assures conveys the real meaning of the term. That there has been an object in this we can scarcely doubt, it has been intended to induce the reader, by continual usage of the words, to suppose that there is really a power of selection and of choice in this dispensation of metamorphoses. Very numerous are the passages in which Natural Selection is personified, and represented as a vigilant inspector and improver of the forms of life, and as endowed with transcendent skill and wisdom in her

multiplied operations. Several of these passages the reader has seen, and that this inexcusable language has produced its effect on the converts to the system is more than probable. But as a corrective to this illusion we propose this experiment. Let the reader, in every instance in which the word Natural Selection occurs, substitute* the real

Take the following instance of a sentence thus corrected: Under changing conditions of life, there is no logical impossibility in the acquirement of any conceivable perfection through-the Sequence of Events as ascertained by us' (224).

And again: The Sequence of Events as ascertained by us, is a power incessantly ready for action; and is as immeasurably superior to man's feeble efforts, as the works of Nature are to those of Art' (65).

meaning of the term, 'the Sequence of Events as ascertained by us,' and it will then be seen how soon the bubble bursts. We recommend this experiment to all the converts of Transmutation.

It is, however, a dangerous practice to trifle with words, and more especially in a scientific treatise; for whilst we are thus misleading others we not unfrequently mislead ourselves; and that Mr Darwin has done this in not a few instances, but especially in the following passage, is sufficiently evident.

'If this relation, on the one hand, between the viscid matter requiring some little time to set hard, and the nectar being so lodged that moths are delayed in getting it; and, on the other hand, between the viscid matter being at first as viscid as ever it will become, and the nectar lying all ready for rapid suction, be accidental, it is a fortunate accident for the plant. If not accidental, AND I CANNOT BELIEVE IT TO BE ACCIDENTAL, WHAT A SINGULAR CASE OF ADAPTATION.-Orchids, 53.

Now, these last words are precisely such as Paley would have used in the case in point, and indeed he has frequently expressed himself in not dissimilar language, in his explanation of the contrivances and adaptations of the structure of organic beings. With him, whose reasoning is avowedly directed to attribute all that is wise, beneficial, and beautiful in nature to the Creator, such language is

-And in this magnificent sentence:

'I can see no limit to the amount of change, to the beauty and infinite complexity of the co-adaptations between all organic beings, one with another and with their physical conditions of life, which may be effected in the long course of time by-the Sequence of Events as ascertained by us (113).

The epitome of all this may be taken in these words: I can believe that anything may have been effected without a cause.'