produced little by little is sufficiently explained by the
slowness of its formation.

These aberrations of thought have recently been manifested in a striking
manner on the occasion of the publication of Mr. Darwin's book. This
naturalist has given his attention to the transformation of organized
types. He has discovered that types vary more than is generally
supposed; and that we probably take simple varieties for distinct
species. His discoveries will, I suppose, leave traces strongly marked
enough in the history of science. But Mr. Darwin is not merely an
observer; he is a theorist, dominated evidently by a disposition to
systematize. Now minds of this character, which render, no doubt, signal
services to the sciences of observation, are all like Pyrrhus, who,
gazing on Andromache as he walked by her side,

Still quaffed bewildering pleasure from the view.[121]

Their theory is their lady-love; they love it passionately, and
passionate love always strongly excites the imagination. Mr. Darwin then
has put forth the hypothesis, that not only all animals, but all
vegetables too, might have come from one and the same primitive type,
from one and the same living cellule. This supposes that there was at
the beginning but one single species, an elementary and very slightly
defined organization, from which all that lives descended in the way of
regular generation. The oak and the wild boar which eats its acorn, the
cat and the flea which lodges in its fur, have common ancestors. The
family, originally one, has been divided under the influence of soil,
climate, food, moisture, mode of life, and by virtue of the natural
selection which has preserved and accumulated the favorable
modifications which have occurred in the organism. Mr. Darwin, I repeat,
appears to me a man strongly disposed to systematize, but I do not on
this account conclude that he is mistaken. The question is, what opinion
we must form of his doctrine on principles of experimental science?
Professor Owen[122] does not appear to allow it any value; M. Agassiz
does not admit it at all;[123] and, without crossing the ocean, we
might consult M. Pictet,[124] who would reply, that judging by the
experimental data which we have at present, this doctrine is an
hypothesis not confirmed by the observation of facts. We will leave this
controversy to naturalists. What will remain eventually in their science
of the system under discussion? The answer belongs t