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Show 482 CONCLUSION. CHAP. XIV. to h1. de our I. gnorance under suc.h e, xpressionds as h t·h ke " plan of creat I.o n, , "unity of des1gn, &c., an to t f In that we g1. ve an exp1 a nation when we. only restateh a act. Any one wh ose d1. sp osition leads h1m to attac more wei. ght to unexp1 a 1' ned difficulties tha. n to th.e expla.n a- tl.o n 0 f a ce rta 1. n number of facts will certain. ly reJecht my t h eory. A few naturalists, endowed Wbit h . muc flexibility of mind, and who ha.ve already . egun to doubt on the immutability of spemes, may be Influenced b y thI.S VO 1U me·, but I look with• confidence. to the future, t o young and rising naturalists, w. ho wil.l be able to 1 . WI view both sides of the question with 1mpartia 1ty. . 10- ever I.s led to believe that species are m. utabhl'e w1ll .d o d service by conscientiously expressing Is convic-tgiooon ; for only thus can the load of preJ·U dI'C e b y wh I' Cl1 this subject is overwhelmed .be removed. . S eve1·a 1 eminent naturalists have of late. pu·b hshedh their belief that a multitude of reputed speCies 1~ eac genus are not r al species; but that other species a~e 1 that is have been independently created. This rea ' ' . . r~l s to me a strange conclusion to arnve at. wy sede~t that a multitude of forms, which till lately a m1 . · d they themselves thought were special ?r~atwns, an which are still thus looked at by the maJonty of naturalists, and which consequently have every ex.ternal characteristic feature of true species,-they admit that these have been produced by variation, but they :efuse to ext nd the same view to other and very slightly different forms. Nevertheless they do not ~retend t::: they can define, or even conjecture, whiCh are created forms of life, and which are those produced by secondary laws. They admit variation as a vera.eausa in one case, they arbitran.l y reJ· ect I' t I· n ano ther' withouiltl as igning any distinction in the two ca~es .. Theda! w f come when this will be given as a curwus IllustratiOn o CHAP. XIV. CONCLUSION. 483 the blindness of preconceived opinion rrh h seem no more startled at a miraculous· act esfe aut t ·o rs h t d. . o crea .Jon t an a an or 1nary b1rth. But do they reall b 1· . . ' y e 1eve th~t at Innumerable penods in the earth's history cer-tain elemental atoms have been commanded sudd 1 fl h . t I' . . en y to as In o 1v1ng tissues ? Do they believe that at each supposed act of creation one individual or many were produced? Were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals and plants created as egO's or seed or as full grown ? and in the case of mam~als wer~ they created bearing the false marks of nourisl1ment from the mother's womb? Although naturalists very properly demand a .full ~xplanation of every difficulty fro~ those .who bel~eve In the mutability of species, on their own side they Ignore the whole subject of the first appearance of species in what they consider reverent silence. It may be asked how far I extend the doctrine of the modification of species. The question is difficult to answer, because the more distinct the forms are which we may consider, by so much the arguments fall away in force. But some arguments of the greatest weight extend very far. All the members of whole clas "'es can be connected together by chains of affinities, and all can be classified .on the same principle, in groups subordinate to groups. Fossil remains sometimes tend to fill up very wide intervals between existing orders. Organs in a rudimentary condition plainly show that an early progenitor had the organ in a fully developed state; and this in some instances necessarily implies an enormous amount of modification in the descendants. Throughout whole classes various structures are formed on the same pattern, and at an embryonic age the species closely resemble each other. Therefore I cannot doubt that the theory of descent with modification Y2 |