ions arrived at by
these two writers and by Buffon. If, again, Mr. Darwin is correct in
saying that Mr. Matthew "clearly saw the full force of the principle of
natural selection," he condemns the view he has himself taken of it in
his 'Origin of Species,' for Mr. Darwin has assigned a far more
important and very different effect to the fact that the fittest
commonly survive in the struggle for existence, than Mr. Matthew has
done. Mr. Matthew sees a cause underlying all variations; he takes the
most teleological or purposive view of organism that has been taken by
any writer (not a theologian) except myself, while Mr. Darwin's view, if
not the least teleological, is certainly nearly so, and his confession
of inability to detect any general cause underlying variations, leaves,
as will appear presently, less than common room for ambiguity. Here are
Mr. Matthew's own words:--

"There is a law universal in nature, tending to render every
reproductive being the best possibly suited to the condition that its
kind, or that organized matter is susceptible of, and which appears
intended to model the physical and mental or instinctive, powers to
their highest perfection, and to continue them so. This law sustains the
lion in his strength, the hare in her swiftness, and the fox in his
wiles. As nature in all her modifications of life has a power of
increase far beyond what is needed to supply the place of what falls by
Time's decay, those individuals who possess not the requisite strength,
swiftness, hardihood, or cunning, fall prematurely without
reproducing--either a prey to their natural devourers, or sinking under
disease, generally induced by want of nourishment, their place being
occupied by the more perfect of their own kind, who are pressing on the
means of existence.

"Throughout this volume, we have felt considerable inconvenience from
the adopted dogmatical classification of plants, and have all along been
floundering between species and variety, which certainly under culture
soften into each other. A particular conformity, each after its own
kind, when in a state of nature, termed species, no doubt exists to a
considerable degree. This conformity has existed during the last forty
centuries; geologists discover a like particular conformity--fossil
species--through the deep deposition of each great epoch; but they also
discover an almost complete difference to exist between the species or
stamp of life of one epoch fro