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Show 168 DARWINIAN A. from suO'gestinO' an accidental origin to chairs and to 5 5 f d . their forms are very proofs 0 esign. Again, 'edifice is a· ge~eric categor.Y of. t~1ought. Egyptian, Grecian, Byzant:ne, and ~ot~1? bmldm?s ~re well-marked species, of whiCh each md1v1dual bmldmg of the sort is a material embodiment. Now, the question is whether these categories or ideas may not have been ~vol ved, one from another in suecession, or from some primal less specialized, edificial category. vVhat better evide~ce for such hypothesis could we have than the variations and grades which connect these species with each other~ We might extend the parallel, and get some good illustrations o~ natural. s~lection fro:n · the history of architecture, and the or1gm of the different styles under different climates and conditions. Two considerations may qualify or limit the comparison. One, that houses do not propagate, so as to produce continuing lines of each sort and variety; but this is of small moment on Agassiz's v~ew, he holding that genealogical connection is not of the essen?e of a species at all. The other, that the formatiOn and development of the ideas ·upon which human wor~s proceed are gradual; or, as the same ~reat natur~hst well states it, "while human thought 1s consecutive, Divine thought is simultaneous." But we have no right to affirm this of Divine action. We must close here. We meant to review some of the more general scientific objections which we thought not altogether tenable. But, after all, we are not so anxious just now to know wh~ther the new theory is well founded on facts, as whether it would DARWIN AND HIS REVIEWERS. 169 be harmless if it were. Besides, we feel quite tmable to answer some of these objections, and it is pleasanter to take up those which one thinks he can. Among the unanswerable, perhaps the weightiest of the objections, is that of the absence, in geological deposits, of vestiges of the intermediate forms which the theory requires to have existed. :Here all that Mr. Darwin can do is to insist upon the extreme imperfection of the geological record and the uncertainty of negative evidence. But, withal, he allows the force of the objection almost as much as his opponents urO'e it-so much so, indeed, that two of his English crit~s turn the concession unfairly upon him, and charge him with actually basing his hypothesis upon these and similar difficulties-as if he held it because of the difficulties, and not in spite of them; a handsome return for his candor! As to this imperfection of the geological record, perhaps we should get a fair and intelligible illustration of it by imagining the existing animals and plants of New England, with all their remains and products since the arrival of the Mayflower, to be annihilated; and that, in the coming time, the geologists of a new colony, dropped by the New Zealand fleet on its wav to explore the ruins of London, undertake, after fifty years of examination, to reconstruct in a ca taloO'ue the flora and fauna of our day, that is, from th~ close of the glacial period to the present time. With all the advantages of a surface exploration, what a beggarly account it would be! I-Iow many of the land animals and plants which are enumerated in the Massachusetts official reports would it be likely to contain? |