cting certain materials indispensable
for its satisfactory completion. What an admirable theory it is so far
as it goes! How nicely it fits into all the facts it comes in contact
with, even into those which it is, of itself and unassisted, incompetent
to explain! How elevating too and ennobling, when rightly conceived! for
who can fail to rejoice in the view it presents of 'Natural selection
working solely by and for the good of each being' that it spares, and
causing 'all corporal and mental endowments to tend towards perfection'?
or who need mind suspecting himself to be descended, through an ape,
from a triton or a hydra, if he may compensate himself by hoping to have
a distant posterity of angels? How well, moreover, would it, if
permitted, chime in with any rational religion, besides being, as
already hinted, absolutely essential to that part of the Mosaic creed
which represents all the variously coloured and variously featured races
of men as springing from one single couple. By what perversity then is
it that Mr. Darwin takes such pains, if not to render his theory
irreligious, at least to exclude from it the assistance which religion
alone can afford, and which it so greatly needs, that whoever, without
that assistance, attempts to apply the theory to the complete
elucidation of phenomena, will be found inevitably committing himself to
the most astounding hypotheses? Here I picture to myself a curl on the
lip of some advanced Darwinian who, having accompanied me so far, cannot
altogether suppress his compassionate scorn at the proposed recurrence
now-a-days to a mode of thought so obsolete in the treatment of
scientific subjects as the theological. 'Positive biology,' he will
perhaps superbly exclaim, repeating the words of Mr. G. H. Lewes,
'declines theological explanations altogether.' Yes, but positive
biology is therein very unwise, for as, if the same reader will
accompany me a little further, I pledge myself to show, it is the
untheological or atheistical, not the theistical, mode of treatment
which is here utterly out of place and flagrantly unscientific. Be it,
without the slightest reserve, admitted that the formation of almost
all, and probably of quite all, existing species is due, and cannot be
otherwise than due, to survival of the fittest, the superior fitness of
these, moreover, being due to the gradual accumulation of innumerable
and, for the most part, exceedingly slight divergencies from the pare