PREFACE. THESE pages are the expansion of a Lecture written on Easter Monday and Tuesday of last year, and delivered the day after, in fulfilment of an engagement, at a small county town in the North. Somewhat varied, it was spoken a second time on behalf of a Mechanics’ Institute in Aberdeen ; and it was repeated a few weeks ago, in the same city, by request of the Young Men's Christian Association. In acceding to wishes to which special weight was due, by preparing these sheets for the press, I have not thought it necessary to efface the original lecture-mould, or to expel allusions to which the statement now made will supply the key. The opening sentences, for example, are only suitable, in strictness, to the one occasion which suggested them, and to an address widely different from that into which this has since developed ; but it seems pardonable to retain, even at some sacrifice of rigorous congruity, a tribute, however slender, to a great man gone. To more than one living leader of British Science is the Appendix indebted for fresh decisions of the most authoritative kind on questions of the first importance. As regards the perfectness of the Human Eye, or the rank of the Human Brain, the testimony of Sir David Brewster and of Professor Owen ought to be an “end of controversy ;” and a weightier judgment than that of Professor Kelland as to the evidence of geometrical forethought impressed on insect architecture is nowhere obtainable. To the prompt courtesy with which this distinguished aid has in each case been accorded, I must associate that of the accomplished Professor of Botany in the University of Aberdeen. The wood-cuts are mostly copies from “Siluria,” and from the works of Professors Owen, Lindley, &c. They owe their excellence (with two exceptions, also meriting my best thanks) to the artistic skill of a gifted young friend. G. R. MAY 1, 1861. CONTENTS 1. “Footprints of the Creator." 2. Brewster, Sedgwick, Whewell, Owen. 3. Speciality yet universal interest of the present inquiry. 4. Range of Mr. Darwin's conclusions. 5. Suggested parallel of Languages. 8. Artificial Selection—the Sheep. 9. Other domesticated animals. 10. The Pigeon and its Varieties. 14. Criticism of this hypothesis — Constancy of Species — Function of 15. Causes of permanent variation in a state of nature. 16. Tendency to Divergence checked by law of Revergence. 17. Variation not identical with Ascensive Development-its limits. 18. Fallacy of Progressive Accumulation. 19. Diaguosis of Species-Hybridism. 21. Alleged incompleteness of the cabinet. 22. Alleged poverty of the contents. 23. Animal competition subordinated to the exigencies of the higher life. 24. Antiquity of type not coincident with lowness in the scale. 25. Geological and historical proof of persistence of type. 28. Animal Structures and Instincts. 29. Neither capable of being resolved into natural causes. 30. Necessary circumscription of both. 33 “ Vera causa"-Bacon-Newton. 35. Origin of Species a problem of the same order with Origin of Life. 36. Claim to consistency with the teachings of Religion. 37. Counter-theory of CREATIVE ELECTION—Man the namner of the creaturos. 40. First Barrier-the Backbone 41. Second Barrier-the Breast. 47. Physical reality of the typical transitions. 48. Natural Religion of the series. 49. Its misperusal by Superstition. 50. Further criteria of the general argument, 51. Duplication of Ground-plan. 52. Correlation of Superiorities. 53. Stages of Creative Working. 54. Concentration of results in Man. 55. Correlation of Skill and Power—the Hand. 58. Mr. Darwin and Sir Charles Lyell. APPENDIX A. On the Validity of the Argument from Design, ? 27 27 8 28 2 28 2 29 35 47 2 56 NOTES AND REFERENCES, 1-114 Who loved, who suffered countless ills, Who battled for the true, the just, Be blown about the desert dust, - A discord. Dragons of the prime, That tare each other in their slime, Were mellow music, matched with him. O life, as futile then as frail ! O for thy voice to soothe and bless! What hope of answer or redress? Behind the veil, behind the veil! IN MEMORIAM. |