OCR Text |
Show 60 DARWINIAN A. a telescope; perfected by the long-continued efforts of ·the highest human intellects," we could carry out the analogy, and draw satisfactory illustrations and inferences from it. The essential, the directly intellectual thing is the m~king of the improvements in the telescope or the steam-engine. Whether the successive improvements, being small at each step, and ~onsistent with the general type of the instrument, are applied to some of the individual machines, or entire new machines are constructed for each, is a minor matter. Though, if machines coulel engender, the adaptive method would be most economical ; and economy is said to be a paramount law in Nature. The origination of the improvements, and the successive adaptations to meet new conditions or subserve other ends, are what answer to the supernatural, and therefore remain inexplicable. As to bringing them into use, thot1gh wisdom foresees the result, the circumstances and the natural competition will take care of that, in the long-run. The old ones will go out of use fast enough, except where an old and simple machine remains still best adapted to a particular purpo~ e or condition-as, for instance, the old N ewcomen engine for pumping out coal-pits. If there's a Divinity that shapes these ends, the whole is intelligible and reasonable; otherwise, not. We regret that the necessity of discussing philosophical questions has prevented a fuller examination of the theory itself, and of the interesting scientific points which are brought to bear in its favor. One of its neatest points, certainly a ·very strong one for the local origination of species, and their gradual di:ffu- TDE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. Gl sion under natural agencies, we must reserve for some other. convenient opportunity. The work is a scientific one, rigidly restricted to its direct object ; and by its science it must stand or fall. Its aim is, probably, not to deny creative intervention in Nature-for the admission of the independent origination of certain types does away with all antecedent improbability of as much intervention as may be required-but to maintain that Natural Selection, in explaining the facts, explains also many classes of facts which thousand-fold repeated independent acts of creation do not explain, but leave more mysterious than ever. flow far the author has succeeded, the scientific world will in due time be able to pronounce. As these sheets are passing through the press, a copy of the second edition has reached us. We notice with pleasure the insertion of an additional motto on the reverse of the title-page, directly claiming the theistic view which we have vindicated for the doctrine. Indeed, these pertinent words of the eminently wise Bishop Butler comprise, in their simplest e~pression, the whole substance of our later pages: "The only distinct meaning of the word 'natural' is stated, fixed, or settlQd / since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent mind to render it ·so; i. e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once," |