Stephen E. Jones
Darwin's references to "creation" (or its cognates) in his The Origin of Species, 6th Edition, 1872
The following quotes are, as far as I am aware, each and every instance where Darwin
used the word "creation" (or its cognates) in his Origin of Species, 6th Edition, 1872.
As can be seen, Darwin used the word "creation" (or its cognates, e.g. "created", "creative", "Creator",
but excluding "creature" and "procreate") over 109 times in the Origin. However, "creation"
is listed only four times in the index: "Centres of creation, 350", "Creation, single
centres of, 350", and "Individuals ... simultaneously created, 252, 253". But one of those ("350")
is the same entry twice, and the other two ("252, 253") the word "creation" (or its cognates)
does not even appear!
And as can also be seen, when Darwin mentioned "creation" (or its cognates), he did it almost
always in a pejorative, strawman, sense. That Darwin needed to mention creation at all, in
what was supposed to be a purely scientific theory, is evidence that Darwinism is
also (if not primarily) a religious theory.
It is common for Darwinists today to rule out in advance even considering creation as an
explanation of the origin and development of life on Earth, on the grounds that it is inherently
not science. But on that basis, Darwin's Origin of Species could not be science either,
because in it Darwin repeatedly considered creation as a rival scientific hypothesis!
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Darwin's References to "creation" (and its cognates), in Darwin C.R., "The Origin of
Species by Means of Natural Selection," [1872], Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Sons:
London, 6th Edition, 1928, reprint.
[Historical Sketch] [Introduction] [Chapter
II, IV, V,
VI, VIII, IX, X, XIII, XI, XII, XIII, XIV, XV]
Historical
Sketch
- p.7: "Until recently the great majority of naturalists believed that
species ... had been separately created"
- p.9: "The ... Dean of Manchester, ... believes that single species
of each genus were created"
- pp.10-11: "The Vestiges of Creation ...
argues ... that species are not immutable productions"
- p.11: "In .... d'Omalius d'Halloy ... opinion ... new species have
been produced by descent with modification than ... separately created"
- p.11: "Professor Owen ... speaks ... of "the axiom of the
continuous operation of creative power, or of the ordained becoming of living
things."
- pp.11-12: "These phenomena shake our confidence in the
conclusion that the Apteryx ... and the Red Grouse ... were distinct creations"
- p.12a: "Always, also, it may be well to bear in mind that by the
word 'creation' the zoologist means 'a process he knows not what.'"
- p.12b: "when such cases as that of the Red Grouse are
"enumerated by the zoologist as evidence of distinct creation"
- p.12c: "I was so completely deceived, as were many others, by
such expressions as `the continuous operation of creative power,' ..."
- p.13: "Mr. Herbert ...has contrasted the theories of the
Creation and the Development of organic beings"
- p.14a: "Dr. Schaaffhausen ... living plants and animals are not
separated from the extinct by new creations"
- p.14b: "the...authors named in this Historical Sketch ... believe
in the modification of species, or at least disbelieve in separate acts of
creation"
- p.15a: "The `Philosophy of Creation' has been
treated in a masterly manner by the Rev. Baden Powell"
- p.15b: "It is difficult to comprehend the meaning of such facts
... if we suppose that each species ... was formed ... by a distinct act of creative
power"
[top]
Introduction
- p.18: "In considering the Origin of Species, ... a naturalist ...
might come to the conclusion that species had not been independently
created."
- p.20: "the view ... which I formerly entertained-namely, that
each species has been independently created-is erroneous."
[top]
Chapter II: Variations
Under Nature
- p.50: "every naturalist knows vaguely what he means when he
speaks of a species. ... the term includes the unknown element of a distinct act of
creation."
- p.56: "The term species thus comes to be a mere useless
abstraction, implying and assuming a separate act of creation."
- p.58: "De Candolle no longer believes that species are
immutable creations"
- p.62: "as a special act of creation, there is no apparent
reason why more varieties should occur in a group having many species"
- p.65: "these analogies are utterly inexplicable if species are
independent creations."
[top]
Chapter IV: Natural
Selection; Or the Survival of the Fittest
- p.94: "so will natural selection banish the belief of the
continued creation of new organic beings"
- pp.103-104: "As some few of the old inhabitants
become modified ... this will create new places"
- p.108: "indigenes; for these are commonly looked at as
specially created and adapted for their own country."
- pp.125-126: "If species had been independently
created, no explanation would have been possible of this kind of
classification."
[top]
Chapter V: Laws of
Variation
- p.132: "in accordance with the old view of the blind animals
having been separately created for the American and European caverns"
- p.133: "It would be difficult to give any rational explanation
of the affinities of the blind cave-animals ... on the ordinary view of their independent
creation."
- p.143: "On the view that each species has been independently
created ... I can see no explanation."
- p.145: "On the ordinary view of each species having been
independently created, why should that part of the structure ... be more variable ...
?"
- p.148: "According to the ordinary view of each species having
been independently created, we should have to attribute this similarity"
- p.150: "A considerable catalogue, also, could be given ...
unless all these closely allied forms be considered as independently created
species"
- pp.153-154: "He who believes that each equine species
was independently created"
- p.154: "I would almost as soon believe ... that fossil shells had
... been created in stone so as to mock the shells living on the sea-
shore."
[top]
Chapter VI: Difficulties of the
Theory
- p.166a: "He who believes that each being has been
created as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise"
- p.166b: "He who believes in separate and innumerable acts
of creation may say that in these cases it has pleased the Creator"
- pp.169-170: "But may not this inference be
presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual
powers like those of man?"
- p.170: "a living optical instrument might thus be formed as
superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man?"
- pp.176-177: "On the hypothesis of separate acts of
creation the whole case remains unintelligible."
- p.180a: "It certainly is true that new organs appearing as if
created for some special purpose rarely or never appear in any being"
- p.180b: "Why, on the theory of Creation, should
there be so much variety and so little real novelty?"
- p.180c: "Why should all the parts and organs of many
independent beings, each supposed to have been separately created ... ?"
- p.184: "some naturalists ... believe that many structures have
been created ... to delight man or the Creator"
- p.185: "With respect to the belief that organic beings have
been created beautiful for the delight of man"
- p.189: "in the discussion light has been thrown on several
facts which on the belief of independent acts of creation are utterly
obscure."
[top]
Chapter VIII:
Instinct
- p.241: "Must we consider these habits, not as especially
endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general law, namely,
transition?"
- p.260: "to my imagination it is far more satisfactory to look at
such instincts ... not as specially endowed or created instincts"
[top]
Chapter IX:
Hybridism
- pp.273-274: "In the second place, it is almost as much
opposed to the theory of natural selection as to that of special creation"
- p.289: "If we look at species as having been specially
created ... this similarity would be an astonishing fact"
[top]
Chapter X: Imperfection of
the Geological Record
- p.311: "These intervals will have given time for the
multiplication of species ... and in the succeeding formation ... will appear as if suddenly
created."
[top]
Chapter XI: Geological
Succession of Organic Beings
- p.321: "Each formation ... does not mark a new and complete
act of creation, but only an occasional scene ... in an ever slowly changing
drama."
[top]
Chapter XII:
Geographical Distribution
- p.350: "Single Centres of supposed
Creation"
- p.352: "Cases of this nature are common, and are, as we shall
hereafter see, inexplicable on the theory of independent creation."
- pp.352-353: "The question of single or multiple centres
of creation ... as some authors suppose from many individuals simultaneously
created."
- p.353: "the three classes of facts which I have selected as
presenting the greatest amount of difficulty on the theory of "single centres of
creation."
- p.361: "Even as long ago as 1747, such facts led Gmelin to
conclude that the same species must have been independently created at many
distinct points"
- p.365: "These cases of close relationship in species ... are
inexplicable on the theory of creation"
[top of
page]
Chapter XIII:
Geographical Distribution-continued
- p.378: "other cases bearing on the truth of the two theories of
independent creation and of descent with modification"
- p.379: "He who admits the doctrine of the
creation of each separate species"
- pp.381-382: "But why, on the theory of
creation, they should not have been created there, it would be very difficult
to explain."
- p.382a: "It cannot be said, on the ordinary view of
creation, that there has not been time for the creation of mammals."
- p.382b: "Why ... has the supposed creative force
produced bats and no other mammals on remote islands?"
- p.383: "the depth of the sea separating two mammalian faunas
... is quite inexplicable on the theory of independent acts of creation"
- p.385a: "The Galapagos Archipelago ... land-birds ... would
commonly be assumed to have been here created"
- p.385b: "why should the species which are supposed to have
been created in the Galapagos ...?"
- pp.385-386: "Facts such as these admit of no sort of
explanation on the ordinary view of independent creation"
- p.390: "The relations just discussed ... are inexplicable on the
ordinary view of the independent creation of each species"
- p.391: "And we are led to this conclusion, which has been
arrived at by many naturalists under the designation of single centres of
creation"
[top]
Chapter XIV: Mutual Affinities
of Organic Beings: Morphology: Embryology: Rudimentary Organs
- pp.395-396: "But many naturalists think that something
more is meant by the Natural System; they believe that it reveals the plan of the
Creator"
- p.396: "Let us now consider ... the difficulties which are
encountered on the view that classification either gives some unknown plan of
creation"
- p.400: "community of descent is the hidden bond which
naturalists have been unconsciously seeking, and not some unknown plan of
creation"
- p.413: "when we ... do not look to some unknown plan of
creation, we may hope to make sure but slow progress."
- pp.414-415: "On the ordinary view of the independent
creation of each being, we can only say that so it is; - that it has pleased the
Creator"
- p.416: "How inexplicable are the cases of serial homologies
on the ordinary view of creation!"
- p.416b: "Why should similar bones have been
created to form the wing and the leg of a bat, used as they are for such totally
different purposes, namely flying and walking?"
- p.432: "In works on natural history, rudimentary organs are
generally said to have been created `for the sake of symmetry,' ...."
- pp.434-435: "organs in a rudimentary ... condition ...
presenting a strange difficulty, as they assuredly do on the old doctrine of
creation"
[top]
Chapter XV: Recapitulation and
Conclusion
- p.442: "Local varieties ... when they have spread, and are
discovered in a geological formation, they appear as if suddenly created there"
- p.446a: no line of demarcation can be drawn between
species, commonly supposed to have been produced by special acts of
creation"
- p.446b: "These are strange relations on the view that each
species was independently created"
- p.447a: "This grand fact of the grouping of all organic beings
under what is called the Natural System, is utterly inexplicable on the theory of
creation."
- p.447b: "nature is prodigal in variety, though niggard in
innovation. But why ... if each species has been independently created, no man can
explain."
- p.448: "on the ordinary view supposed to have been
created and specially adapted for that country"
- p.449a: "How inexplicable on the theory of
creation is the occasional appearance of stripes"
- p.449b: "On the ordinary view of each species having been
independently created, why should specific characters"
- p.449c: "It is inexplicable on the theory of creation
why a part developed in a very unusual manner"
- p.450: "This similarity would be a strange fact, if species had
been independently created"
- p.452a: "the presence of peculiar species of bats on oceanic
islands ... are facts utterly inexplicable on the theory of independent acts of
creation"
- p.452b: "It must be admitted that these facts receive no
explanation on the theory of creation."
- p.454: "On the view of each organism with all its separate
parts having been specially created, how utterly inexplicable"
- p.455a: "it is just as noble a conception of the Deity to
believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development"
- p.455b: "It cannot be maintained that ... sterility is a special
endowment and sign of creation."
- p.456: "It is so easy to hide our
ignorance under such expressions as the "plan of creation"
- pp.456-457: "Several eminent naturalists have of late
published their belief that ... species ... have been independently created."
- p.457a: "Nevertheless they do not pretend that they can
define, or even conjecture, which are the created forms of life."
- p.457b: "These authors seem no more startled at a
miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary birth."
- p.457c: "Do they believe that at each supposed act of
creation one individual or many were produced?"
- p.457d: "Were all the infinitely numerous kinds of animals
and plants created as eggs or seed, or as full grown?"
- p.457e: "and in the case of mammals, were they
created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's womb?"
- p.457f: "Undoubtedly some of these same questions cannot
be answered by those who believe in the appearance or creation"
- p.457g: "It has been maintained by several authors that it is
as easy to believe in the creation of a million beings as of one"
- p.457h: "and certainly we ought not to believe that
innumerable beings within each great class have been created with plain, but
deceptive, marks of descent"
- p.457i: "I have retained in the foregoing paragraphs ... several
sentences which imply that naturalists believe in the separate creation of each
species"
- pp.457-458: "little advantage is gained by believing that
new forms are suddenly developed ... over the old belief in the creation of
species"
- p.460: "Our classifications ... will then truly give what may be
called the plan of creation."
- p.461: "As species are produced and exterminated ... not by
miraculous acts of creation"
- p.462a: "Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully
satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created"
- p.462b: "To my mind it accords better with what we know of
the laws impressed on matter by the Creator"
- p.462c: "When I view all beings not as special
creations, but as the lineal descendants"
- p.463: "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several
powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator"
[top]
Historical Sketch
- p.7: "Until recently the great majority of naturalists
believed that species were immutable productions, and had been separately created.
This view has been ably maintained by many authors. Some few naturalists, on the other hand,
have believed that species undergo modification, and that the existing forms of life are the
descendants by true generation of pre-existing forms." return
- p.9: "The Hon. and Rev. W. Herbert, afterwards
Dean of Manchester, ... believes that single species of each genus were created in an
originally highly plastic condition, and that these have produced, chiefly by intercrossing, but
likewise by variation, all our existing species." return
- pp.10-11: "The Vestiges of
Creation appeared in 1844. In the tenth and much improved edition (1853) the
anonymous author ... argues with much force on general grounds that species are not
immutable productions" return
- p.11: "In 1846 the veteran geologist M. J.
d'Omalius d'Halloy published in an excellent though short paper (Bulletins de l'Acad. Roy.
Bruxelles, tom. xiii., p. 581), his opinion that it is more probable that new species have
been produced by descent with modification than that they have been separately
created: the author first promulgated this opinion in 1831." return
- p.11: "Professor Owen, in ... his Address to the
British Association) in 1858, he speaks (p. li) of "the axiom of the continuous operation of
creative power, or of the ordained becoming of living things." return
- pp.11-12: "Farther on (p. xc), after referring
to geographical distribution, he [Professor Owen] adds, "These phenomena shake our
confidence in the conclusion that the Apteryx of New Zealand and the Red Grouse of England
were distinct creations in and for those islands respectively." return
- p.12a: "Always, also, it may be well to bear in
mind that by the word 'creation' the zoologist means 'a process he knows not what.'"
return
- p.12b: "He [Professor Owen] amplifies this idea
by-adding, that when such cases as that of the Red Grouse are "enumerated by the zoologist
as evidence of distinct creation of the bird in and for such islands, he chiefly
expresses that he knows not bow the Red Grouse came to be there, and there exclusively;
signifying also, by this mode of expressing such ignorance, his belief that both the bird and the
islands owed their origin to a great first Creative Cause." return
- p.12c: "When the first edition of this work was
published, I was so completely deceived, as were many others, by such expressions as " the
continuous operation of creative power," that I included Professor Owen with other
palaeontologists as being firmly convinced of the immutability of species; but it appears
(Anat. of Vertebrates, vol. iii., p. 796) that this was on my part a preposterous error."
return
- p.13: "Mr. Herbert Spencer, in an Essay
(originally published in the Leader, March 1852, and republished in his Essays
in 1858), has contrasted the theories of the Creation and the Development of
organic beings with remarkable skill and force. He argues from the analogy of domestic
productions, from the changes which the embryos of many species undergo, from the
difficulty of distinguishing species and varieties, and from the principle of general gradation,
that species have been modified; and he attributes the modification to the change of
circumstances." return
- p.14a: "In this same year, 1853, Dr.
Schaaffhausen published an excellent pamphlet (Verhand. des Naturhist. Vereins der
Preuss. Rheinlands, etc.) in which he maintains the progressive development of organic
forms on the earth. He infers that many species have kept true for long periods, whereas a few
have become modified. The distinction of species he explains by the destruction of
intermediate graduated forms. "Thus living plants and animals are not separated from the
extinct by new creations, but are to be regarded as their descendants through
continued reproduction." return
- p.14b: "I may add, that of the thirty-four authors
named in this Historical Sketch, who believe in the modification of species, or at least
disbelieve in separate acts of creation, twenty-seven have written on special branches
of natural history or geology." return
- p.15a: "The `Philosophy of Creation'
has been treated in a masterly manner by the Rev. Baden Powell in his Essays on the Unity
of Worlds, 1855. Nothing can be more striking than the manner in which he shows that
the introduction of new species is `a regular, not a casual phenomenon,' or, as Sir John
Herschel expresses it, `a natural in contradistinction to a miraculous process.'" return
- p.15b: "In June 1859, Professor Huxley gave a
lecture before the Royal Institution on the `Persistent Types of Animal Life.' Referring to such
cases, he remarks, `It is difficult to comprehend the meaning of such facts as these, if we
suppose that each species of animal and plant, or each great type of organisation was formed
and placed upon the surface of the globe at long intervals by a distinct act of creative
power; and it is well to recollect that such an assumption is as unsupported by tradition or
revelation as it is opposed to the general analogy of nature'" return
Introduction
- p.18: "In considering the Origin of Species, it is quite
conceivable that a naturalist, reflecting on the mutual affinities of organic beings, on their
embryological relations, their geographical distribution, geological succession, and other such
facts, might come to the conclusion that species had not been independently created,
but had descended, like varieties, from other species." return
- p.20: "Although much remains obscure, and will
long remain obscure I can entertain no doubt, after the most deliberate study and
dispassionate judgment of which I am capable, that the view which most naturalists until
recently entertained, and which I formerly entertained-namely, that each species has been
independently created-is erroneous. I am fully convinced that species are not
immutable; but that those belonging to what are called the same genera are lineal descendants
of some other and generally extinct species, in the same manner as the acknowledged varieties
of any one species are the descendants of that species." return
Chapter II: Variations Under
Nature
- p.50: "BEFORE applying the principles arrived at in
the last chapter to organic beings in a state of nature, we must briefly discuss whether these
latter are subject to any variation. To treat this subject properly, a long catalogue of dry facts
ought to be given but these I shall reserve for a future work. Nor shall I here discuss the
various definitions which have been given of the term species. No one definition has satisfied
all naturalists; yet every naturalist knows vaguely what he means when he speaks of a species.
Generally the term includes the unknown element of a distinct act of creation." return
- p.56: "Some few naturalists maintain that animals
never present varieties; but then these same naturalists rank the slightest difference as of
specific value; and when the same identical form is met with in two distant countries, or in two
geological formations, they believe that two distinct species are hidden under the same dress.
The term species thus comes to be a mere useless abstraction, implying and assuming a
separate act of creation." return
- p.58: "It should be added that De Candolle no
longer believes that species are immutable creations, but concludes that the
derivative theory is the most natural one, "and the most accordant with the known facts in
palaeontology, geographical botany and zoology, of anatomical structure and classification."
return
- p.62: "Where many species of a genus have been
formed through variation, circumstances have been favourable for variation; and hence we
might expect that the circumstances would generally be still favourable to variation. On the
other hand, if we look at each species as a special act of creation, there is no
apparent reason why more varieties should occur in a group having many species, than in one
having few." return
- p.65: "In all these respects the species of large
genera present a strong analogy with varieties. And we can clearly understand these analogies,
if species once existed as varieties, and thus originated; whereas, these analogies are utterly
inexplicable if species are independent creations." return
Chapter IV: Natural Selection; Or the Survival of the
Fittest
- p.94: "Natural selection acts only by the
preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the
preserved being; and as modern geology has almost banished such views as the excavation of
a great valley by a single diluvial wave, so will natural selection banish the belief of the
continued creation of new organic beings, or of any great and sudden modification in
their structure." return
- pp.103-104: "As some few of the old
inhabitants become modified, the mutual relations of others will often be disturbed; and this
will create new places, ready to be filled up by better adapted forms; but all this will
take place very slowly although all the individuals of the same species differ in some slight
degree from each other, it would often be long before differences of the right nature in various
parts of the organisation might occur." return
- p.108: "It might have been expected that the
plants which would succeed in becoming naturalised in any land would generally have been
closely allied to the indigenes; for these are commonly looked at as specially created
and adapted for their own country. It might also, perhaps, have been expected that naturalised
plants would have belonged to a few groups more especially adapted to certain stations in
their new homes. But the case is very different ..." return
- pp.125-126: "It is a truly wonderful fact-
the wonder of which we are apt to overlook from familiarity-that all animals and all plants
throughout all time and space should be related to each other in groups subordinate to groups,
in the manner which we everywhere behold-namely, varieties of the same species most closely
related, species of the same genus less closely and unequally related, forming sections and
sub-genera, species of distinct genera much less closely related, and genera related in different
degrees, forming sub- families, families, orders, sub-classes, and classes. The several
subordinate groups in any class cannot be ranked in a single file, but seem clustered round
points, and these round other points, and so on in almost endless cycles. If species had been
independently created, no explanation would have been possible of this kind of
classification; but it is explained through inheritance and the complex action of natural
selection, entailing extinction and divergence of character, as we have seen illustrated in the
diagram." return
Chapter V: Laws of Variation
- p.132: "It is difficult to imagine conditions of life
more similar than deep limestone caverns under a nearly similar climate; so that, in accordance
with the old view of the blind animals having been separately created for the
American and European caverns, very close similarity in their organisation and affinities might
have been expected. This is certainly not the case ..." return
- p.133: "Notwithstanding such modifications, we
might expect still to see in the cave-animals of America, affinities to the other inhabitants of
that continent, and in those of Europe to the inhabitants of the European continent. And this is
the case with some of the American cave-animals, as I hear from Professor Dana; and some of
the European cave-insects are very closely allied to those of the surrounding country. It would
be difficult to give any rational explanation of the affinities of the blind cave-animals to the
other inhabitants of the two continents on the ordinary view of their independent
creation." return
- p.143: "When we see any part or organ
developed in a remarkable degree or manner in a species, the fair presumption is that it is of
high importance to that species; nevertheless it is in this case eminently liable to variation.
Why should this be so? On the view that each species has been independently
created, with all its parts as we now see them, I can see no explanation. But on the
view that groups of species are descended from some other species, and have been modified
through natural selection, I think we can obtain some light." return
- p.145: "On the ordinary view of each species
having been independently created, why should that part of the structure, which
differs from the same part in other independently created species of the same genus,
be more variable than those parts which are closely alike in the several species? I do not see
that any explanation can be given. But on the view that species are only strongly marked and
fixed varieties, we might expect often to find them still continuing to vary in those parts of
their structure which have varied within a moderately recent period, and which have thus
come to differ." return
- p.148: "According to the ordinary view of each
species having been independently created, we should have to attribute this similarity
in the enlarged stems of these three plants, not to the vera causa of community of
descent, and a consequent tendency to vary in a like manner, but to three separate yet closely
related acts of creation." return
- p.150: "The difficulty in distinguishing variable
species is largely due to the varieties mocking, as it were, other species of the same genus. A
considerable catalogue, also, could be given of forms intermediate between two other forms,
which themselves can only doubtfully be ranked as species; and this shows, unless all these
closely allied forms be considered as independently created species, that they have in
varying assumed some of the characters of the others." return
- pp.153-154: "He who believes that each
equine species was independently created, will, I presume, assert that each species
has been created with a tendency to vary, both under nature and under
domestication, in this particular manner, so as often to become striped like the other species of
the genus; and that each has been created with a strong tendency, when crossed with
species inhabiting distant quarters of the world, to produce hybrids resembling in their stripes,
not their own parents, but other species of the genus." return
- p.154: "To admit this view is, as it seems to me,
to reject a real for an unreal, or at least for an unknown, cause. It makes the works of God a
mere mockery and deception; I would almost as soon believe with the old and ignorant
cosmogonists, that fossil shells had never lived, but had been created in stone so as
to mock the shells living on the sea-shore." return
Chapter VI: Difficulties of the Theory
- p.166a: "He who believes that each being has been
created as we now see it, must occasionally have felt surprise when he has met with
an animal having habits and structure not in agreement. What can be plainer than that the
webbed feet of ducks and geese are formed for swimming? Yet there are upland geese with
webbed feet which rarely go near the water; and no one except Audubon has seen the frigate-
bird, which has all its four toes webbed, alight on the surface of the ocean. On the other hand,
grebes and coots are eminently aquatic, although their toes are only bordered by membrane."
return
- p.166b: "He who believes in separate and
innumerable acts of creation may say that in these cases it has pleased the
Creator to cause a being of one type to take the place of one belonging to another
type; but this seems to me only re-stating the fact in dignified language. He who believes in
the struggle for existence and in the principle of natural selection, will acknowledge that every
organic being is constantly endeavouring to increase in numbers; and that if any one being
varies ever so little, either in habits or structure, and thus gains an advantage over some other
inhabitant of the same country, it will seize on the place of that inhabitant, however different
that may be from its own place. Hence it will cause him no surprise that there should be geese
and frigate-birds with webbed feet, living on the dry land and rarely alighting on the water;
that there should be long-toed corncrakes, living in meadows instead of in swamps; that there
should be woodpeckers where hardly a tree grows; that there should be diving thrushes and
diving Hymenoptera, and petrels with the habits of auks." return
- pp.169-170: "It is scarcely possible to
avoid comparing the eye with a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by
the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye
has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be
presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual
powers like those of man?" return
- p.170: "If we must compare the eye to an optical
instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with spaces
filled with fluid, and with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of
this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different
densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces
of each layer slowly changing in form. Further we must suppose that there is a power,
represented by natural selection or the survival of the fittest, always intently watching each
slight alteration in the transparent layers; and carefully preserving each which, under varied
circumstances, in any way or in any degree, tends to produce a distinctive image. We must
suppose each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; each to be preserved
until a better one is produced, and then the old ones to be all destroyed. In living bodies,
variation will cause the slight alterations, generation will multiply them almost infinitely) and
natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement. Let this process go on for
millions of years- and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds and may we
not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as
the works of the Creator are to those of man?" return
- pp.176-177: "Several families of
crustaceans include a few species possessing an air-breathing apparatus and fitted to live out
of the water. ... Now such differences are intelligible, and might even have been expected, on
the supposition that species belonging to distinct families had slowly become adapted to live
more and more out of water, and to breathe the air. For these species, from belonging to
distinct families, would have differed to a certain extent, and in accordance with the principle
that the nature of each variation depends on two factors, viz. the nature of the organism and
that of the surrounding conditions, their variability assuredly would not have been exactly the
same. Consequently natural selection would have had different materials or variations to work
on, in order to arrive at the same functional result; and the structures thus acquired would
almost necessarily have differed. On the hypothesis of separate acts of creation the
whole case remains unintelligible." return
- p.180a: "Finally then, although in many cases it
is most difficult even to conjecture by what transitions organs have arrived at their present
state, yet, considering how small the proportion of living and known forms is to the extinct
and unknown, I have been astonished how rarely an organ can be named, towards which no
transitional grade is known to lead. It certainly is true that new organs appearing as if
created for some special purpose rarely or never appear in any being-as indeed is
shown by that old, but somewhat exaggerated, canon in natural history of "Natura non facit
saltum." return
- p.180b: "We meet with this admission in the
writings of almost every experienced naturalist; or as Milne Edwards has well expressed it,
Nature is prodigal in variety, but niggard in innovation. Why, on the theory of
Creation, should there be so much variety and so little real novelty?" return
- p.180c: "Why should all the parts and organs of
many independent beings, each supposed to have been separately created for its
proper place in nature, be so commonly linked together by graduated steps?" return
- p.184: "The foregoing remarks lead me to say a
few words on the protest lately made by some naturalists, against the utilitarian doctrine that
every detail of structure has been produced for the good of its possessor. They believe that
many structures have been created for the sake of beauty, to delight man or the
Creator (but this latter point is beyond the scope of scientific discussion), or for the
sake of mere variety, a view already discussed." return
- p.185: "With respect to the belief that organic
beings have been created beautiful for the delight of man,-a belief which it has been
pronounced is subversive of my whole theory,-I may first remark that the sense of beauty
obviously depends on the nature of the mind, irrespective of any real quality in the admired
object; and that the idea of what is beautiful is not innate or unalterable. We see this, for
instance, in the men of different races admiring an entirely different standard of beauty in their
women. If beautiful objects had been created solely for man's gratification, it ought
to be shown that before man appeared there was less beauty on the face of the earth than since
he came on the stage. Were the beautiful volute and cone shells of the Eocene epoch, and the
gracefully sculptured ammonites of the Secondary period, created that man might
ages afterwards admire them in his cabinet? Few objects are more beautiful than the minute
siliceous cases of the diatomaceae: were these created that they might be examined
and admired under the higher powers of the microscope?" return
- p.189: "We have in this chapter discussed some
of the difficulties and objections which may be urged against the theory. Many of them are
serious; but I think that in the discussion light has been thrown on several facts which on the
belief of independent acts of creation are utterly obscure." return
Chapter VIII: Instinct
- p.241: "Mr. Hudson is a strong disbeliever in
evolution, but he appears to have been so much struck by the imperfect instincts of the
Molothrus bonariensis that he quotes my words, and asks, "Must we consider these habits, not
as especially endowed or created instincts, but as small consequences of one general
law, namely, transition?" return
- p.260: "Finally, it may not be a logical
deduction, but to my imagination it is far more satisfactory to look at such instincts as the
young cuckoo ejecting its foster-brothers,-ants making slaves,-the larvae of ichneumonidae
feeding within the live bodies of caterpillars,-not as specially endowed or created
instincts, but as small consequences of one general law leading to the advancement of all
organic beings,-namely, multiply, vary, let the strongest live and the weakest die." return
Chapter IX: Hybridism
- pp.273-274: "In the first place, it may be
remarked that species inhabiting distinct regions are often sterile when crossed; now it could
clearly have been of no advantage to such separated species to have been rendered mutually
sterile, and consequently this could not have been effected through natural selection; but it
may perhaps be argued, that, if a species was rendered sterile with some one compatriot,
sterility with other species would follow as a necessary contingency. In the second place, it is
almost as much opposed to the theory of natural selection as to that of special
creation, that in reciprocal crosses the male element of one form should have been
rendered utterly impotent on a second form, whilst at the same time the male element of this
second form is enabled freely to fertilise the first form; for this peculiar state of the
reproductive system could hardly have been advantageous to either species." return
- p.289: "Independently of the question of fertility
and sterility, in all other respects there seems to be a general and close similarity in the
offspring of crossed species, and of crossed varieties. If we look at species as having been
specially created, and at varieties as having been produced by secondary laws, this
similarity would be an astonishing fact. But it harmonises perfectly with the view that there is
no essential distinction between species and varieties." return
Chapter X: Imperfection of the Geological
Record
- p.311: "We do not make due allowance for the
intervals of time which have elapsed between our consecutive formations,-longer perhaps in
many cases than the time required for the accumulation of each formation. These intervals will
have given time for the multiplication of species from some one parent-form; and in the
succeeding formation, such groups or species will appear as if suddenly created." return
Chapter XI: Geological Succession of Organic
Beings
- p.321: "In members of the same class the average
amount of change, during long and equal periods of time, may, perhaps, be nearly the same;
but as the accumulation of enduring formations, rich in fossils, depends on great masses of
sediment being deposited on subsiding areas, our formations have been almost necessarily
accumulated at wide and irregularly intermittent intervals of time; consequently the amount of
organic change exhibited by the fossils embedded in consecutive formations is not equal. Each
formation, on this view, does not mark a new and complete act of creation, but only
an occasional scene, taken almost at hazard, in an ever slowly changing drama." return
Chapter XII: Geographical
Distribution
- p.350: "Single Centres of supposed
Creation.-We are thus brought to the question which has been largely discussed by
naturalists, namely, whether species have been created at one or more points of the
earth's surface. Undoubtedly there are many cases of extreme difficulty in understanding how
the same species could possibly have migrated from some one point to the several distant and
isolated points where now found. Nevertheless the simplicity of the view that each species was
first produced within a single region captivates the mind. He who rejects it, rejects the
vera causa of ordinary generation with subsequent migration, and calls in the agency
of a miracle." return
- p.352: "A volcanic island, for instance, upheaved
and formed at the distance of a few hundreds of miles from a continent, would probably
receive from it in the course of time a few colonists, and their descendants, though modified,
would still be related by inheritance to the inhabitants of that continent. Cases of this nature
are common, and are, as we shall hereafter see, inexplicable on the theory of independent
creation." return
- pp.352-353: "The question of single or
multiple centres of creation differ from another though allied question,-namely,
whether all the individuals of the same species are descended from a single pair or single
hermaphrodite, or whether, as some authors suppose from many individuals simultaneously
created." return
- p.353: "Before discussing the three classes of
facts which I have selected as presenting the greatest amount of difficulty on the theory of
"single centres of creation," I must say a few words on the means of dispersal." return
- p.361: "Even as long ago as 1747, such facts led
Gmelin to conclude that the same species must have been independently created at
many distinct points; and we might have remained in this same belief, had not Agassiz and
others called vivid attention to the Glacial period, which, as we shall immediately see, affords
a simple explanation of these facts." return
- p.365: "These cases of close relationship in
species either now or formerly inhabiting the seas on the eastern and western shores of North
America, the Mediterranean and Japan, and the temperate lands of North America and
Europe, are inexplicable on the theory of creation. We cannot maintain that such
species have been created alike, in correspondence with the nearly similar physical
conditions of the areas; for if we compare, for instance, certain parts of South America with
parts of South Africa or Australia, we see countries closely similar in all their physical
conditions, with their inhabitants utterly dissimilar." return
Chapter XIII: Geographical Distribution-
continued
- p.378: "In the following remarks I shall not confine
myself to the mere question of dispersal, but shall consider some other cases bearing on the
truth of the two theories of independent creation and of descent with modification."
return
- p.379: "He who admits the doctrine of the
creation of each separate species, will have to admit that a sufficient number of the
best adapted plants and animals were not created for oceanic islands; for man has
unintentionally stocked them far more fully and perfectly than did nature." return
- pp.381-382: "But as these animals and
their spawn are immediately killed (with the exception, as far as known, of one Indian species)
by sea-water, there would be great difficulty in their transportal across the sea, and therefore
we can see why they do not exist on strictly oceanic islands. But why, on the theory of
creation, they should not have been created there, it would be very difficult
to explain." return
- p.382a: "It cannot be said, on the ordinary view
of creation, that there has not been time for the creation of mammals;
many volcanic islands are sufficiently ancient, as shown by the stupendous degradation which
they have suffered, and by their tertiary strata: there has also been time for the production of
endemic species belonging to other classes; and on continents it is known that new species of
mammals appear and disappear at a quicker rate than other and lower animals." return
- p.382b: "Why, it may be asked, has the
supposed creative force produced bats and no other mammals on remote islands? On
my view this question can easily be answered; for no terrestrial mammal can be transported
across a wide space of sea, but bats can fly across." return
- p.383: "As the amount of modification which
animals of all kinds undergo, partly depends on the lapse of time, and as the islands which are
separated from each other or from the mainland by shallow channels, are more likely to have
been continuously united within a recent period than the islands separated by deeper channels,
we can understand how it is that a relation exists between the depth of the sea separating two
mammalian faunas, and the degree of their affinity,-a relation which is quite inexplicable on the
theory of independent acts of creation." return
- p.385a: "The Galapagos Archipelago, situated
under the equator, lies at the distance of between 500 and 600 miles from the shores of South
America. Here almost every product of the land and of the water bears the unmistakable
stamp of the American continent. There are twenty-six land-birds; of these, twenty-one or
perhaps twenty-three are ranked as distinct species, and would commonly be assumed to have
been here created; yet the close affinity of most of these birds to American species is
manifest in every character, in their habits, gestures, and tones of voice." return
- p.385b: "The naturalist, looking at the
inhabitants of these volcanic islands in the Pacific, distant several hundred miles from the
continent, feels that he is standing on American land. Why should this be so? why should the
species which are supposed to have been created in the Galapagos Archipelago, and
nowhere else, bear so plainly the stamp of affinity to those created in America?" return
- pp.385-386: "Facts such as these admit of
no sort of explanation on the ordinary view of independent creation; whereas on the
view here maintained, it is obvious that the Galapagos Islands would be likely to colonists
from America, whether by occasional means of transport or (though I do not believe in this
doctrine) by formerly continuous land, and the Cape Verde Islands from Africa; such colonists
would be liable to modification,-the principle of inheritance still betraying their original
birthplace." return
- p.390: "The relations just discussed,-namely,
lower organisms ranging more widely than the higher,-some of the species of widely ranging
genera themselves ranging widely,-such facts, as alpine, lacustrine, and marsh productions
being generally related to those which live on the surrounding low lands and dry lands,- the
striking relationship between the inhabitants of islands and those of the nearest mainland,-the
still closer relationship of the distinct inhabitants of the islands in the same archipelago,-are
inexplicable on the ordinary view of the independent creation of each species, but
are explicable if we admit colonisation from the nearest or readiest source, together with the
subsequent adaptation of the colonists to their new homes." return
- p.391: "In these chapters I have endeavoured to
show, that if we make due allowance for our ignorance of the full effects of changes of climate
and of the level of the land, which have certainly occurred within the recent period, and of
other changes which have probably occurred,-if we remember how ignorant we are with
respect to the many curious means of occasional transport, -if we bear in mind, and this is a
very important consideration, how often a species may have ranged continuously over a wide
area, and then have become extinct in the intermediate tracts,-the difficulty is not insuperable
in believing that all the individuals of the same species, wherever found, are descended from
common parents. And we are led to this conclusion, which has been arrived at by many
naturalists under the designation of single centres of creation, by various general
considerations, more especially from the importance of barriers of all kinds, and from the
analogical distribution of sub-genera, genera, and families." return
Chapter XIV: Mutual Affinities of Organic Beings:
Morphology: Embryology: Rudimentary Organs
- pp.395-396: "Naturalists, as we have seen, try
to arrange the species, genera, and families in each class, on what is called the Natural System.
But what is meant by this system? Some authors look at it merely as a scheme for arranging
together those living objects which are most alike, and for separating those which are most
unlike; or as an artificial method of enunciating, as briefly as possible, general propositions,-
that is, by one sentence to give the characters common, for instance, to all mammals, by
another those common to all carnivora, by another those common to the dog-genus, and then,
by adding a single sentence, a full description is given of each kind of dog. The ingenuity and
utility of this system are indisputable. But many naturalists think that something more is meant
by the Natural System; they believe that it reveals the plan of the Creator; but unless
it be specified whether order in time or space, or both, or what else is meant by the plan of the
Creator, it seems to me that nothing is thus added to our knowledge." return
- p.396: "Let us now consider the rules followed
in classification, and the difficulties which are encountered on the view that classification
either gives some unknown plan of creation, or is simply a scheme for enunciating
general propositions and of placing together the forms most like each other. It might have
been thought (and was in ancient times thought) that those parts of the structure which
determined the habits of life, and the general place of each being in the economy of nature,
would be of very high importance in classification. Nothing can be more false." return
- p.400: "All the foregoing rules and aids and
difficulties in classification may be explained, if I do not greatly deceive myself, on the view
that the Natural System is founded on descent with modification;-that the characters which
naturalists consider as showing true affinity between any two or more species, are those which
have been inherited from a common parent, all true classification being genealogical;-that
community of descent is the hidden bond which naturalists have been unconsciously seeking,
and not some unknown plan of creation, or the enunciation of general propositions,
and the mere putting together and separating objects more or less alike." return
- p.413: "We can clearly see how it is that all
living and extinct forms can be grouped together within a few great classes; and how the
several members of each class are connected together by the most complex and radiating lines
of affinities. We shall never, probably, disentangle the inextricable web of the affinities
between the members of any one class; but when we have a distinct object in view, and do not
look to some unknown plan of creation, we may hope to make sure but slow
progress." return
- pp.414-415: "Nothing can be more
hopeless than to attempt to explain this similarity of pattern in members of the same class, by
utility or by the doctrine of final causes. The hopelessness of the attempt has been expressly
admitted by Owen in his most interesting work on the Nature of Limbs. On the
ordinary view of the independent creation of each being, we can only say that so it
is; - that it has pleased the Creator to construct all the animals and plants in each
great class on a uniform plan; but this is not a scientific explanation." return
- p.416a: "How inexplicable are the cases of
serial homologies on the ordinary view of creation! Why should the brain be
enclosed in a box composed of such numerous and such extraordinarily shaped pieces of bone,
apparently representing vertebrae? As Owen has remarked, the benefit derived from the
yielding of the separate pieces in the act of parturition by mammals, will by no means explain
the same construction in the skulls of birds and reptiles." return
- p.416b: "Why should similar bones have been
created to form the wing and the leg of a bat, used as they are for such totally
different purposes, namely flying and walking? Why should one crustacean, which has an
extremely complex mouth formed of many parts, consequently always have fewer legs; or
conversely, those with many legs have simpler mouths? Why should the sepals, petals,
stamens, and pistils in each flower, though fitted for such distinct purposes, be all constructed
on the same pattern?" return
- p.432: "I have now given the leading facts with
respect to rudimentary organs. In reflecting on them, everyone must be struck with
astonishment; for the same reasoning power which tells us that most parts and organs are
exquisitely adapted for certain purposes, tells us with equal plainness that these rudimentary or
atrophied organs are imperfect and useless. In works on natural history, rudimentary organs
are generally said to have been created `for the sake of symmetry,' or in order `to
complete the scheme of nature.' But this is not an explanation, merely a re-statement of the
fact." return
- pp.434-435: "On the view of descent with
modification, we may conclude that the existence of organs in a rudimentary, imperfect, and
useless condition, or quite aborted, far from presenting a strange difficulty, as they assuredly
do on the old doctrine of creation, might even have been anticipated in accordance
with the views here explained." return
Chapter XV: Recapitulation and
Conclusion
- p.442: "It is the dominant and widely ranging species
which vary most frequently and vary most, and varieties are often at first local-both causes
rendering the discovery of intermediate links in any one formation less likely. Local varieties
will not spread into other and distant regions until they are considerably modified and
improved; and when they have spread, and are discovered in a geological formation, they
appear as if suddenly created there, and will be simply classed as new species." return
- p.446a: "On the view that species are only
strongly marked and permanent varieties, and that each species first existed as a variety, we
can see why it is that no line of demarcation can be drawn between species, commonly
supposed to have been produced by special acts of creation, and varieties which are
acknowledged to have been produced by secondary laws." return
- p.446b: "Moreover, the species of the larger
genera, which afford the greater number of varieties or incipient species, retain to a certain
degree the character of varieties; for they differ from each other by a less amount of difference
than do the species of smaller genera. The closely allied species also of the larger genera
apparently have restricted ranges, and in their affinities they are clustered in little groups
round other species-in both respects resembling varieties. These are strange relations on the
view that each species was independently created, but are intelligible if each existed
first as a variety." return
- p.447a: "This tendency in the large groups to
go on increasing in size and diverging in character, together with the inevitable contingency of
much extinction, explains the arrangement of all the forms of life in groups subordinate to
groups, all within a few great classes, which has prevailed throughout all time. This grand fact
of the grouping of all organic beings under what is called the Natural System, is utterly
inexplicable on the theory of creation." return
- p.447b: "We can see why throughout nature
the same general end is gained by an almost infinite diversity of means, for every peculiarity
when once acquired is long inherited, and structures already modified in many different ways
have to be adapted for the same general purpose. We can, in short, see why nature is prodigal
in variety, though niggard in innovation. But why this should be a law of nature if each species
has been independently created, no man can explain." return
- p.448: "As natural selection acts by competition,
it adapts and improves the inhabitants of each country only in relation to their co-inhabitants;
so that we need feel no surprise at the species of any one country, although on the ordinary
view supposed to have been created and specially adapted for that country, being
beaten and supplanted by the naturalised productions from another land." return
- p.449a: "How inexplicable on the theory of
creation is the occasional appearance of stripes on the shoulders and legs of the
several species of the horse-genus and of their hybrids! How simply is this fact explained if we
believe that these species are all descended from a striped progenitor, in the same manner as
the several domestic breeds of the pigeon are descended from the blue and barred rock-
pigeon!" return
- p.449b: "On the ordinary view of each species
having been independently created, why should specific characters, or those by
which the species of the same genus differ from each other, be more variable than generic
characters in which they all agree? Why, for instance, should the colour of a flower be more
likely to vary in any one species of a genus, if the other species possess differently coloured
flowers, than if all possessed the same coloured flowers? If species are only well-marked
varieties, of which the characters have become in a high degree permanent, we can understand
this fact; for they have already varied since they branched off from a common progenitor in
certain characters, by which they have come to be specifically distinct from each other;
therefore these same characters would be more likely again to vary than the generic characters
which have been inherited without change for an immense period." return
- p.449c: "It is inexplicable on the theory of
creation why a part developed in a very unusual manner in one species alone of a
genus, and therefore, as we may naturally infer, of great importance to that species, should be
eminently liable to variation; but, on our view, this part has undergone, since the several
species branched off from a common progenitor, an unusual amount of variability and
modification, and therefore we might expect the part generally to be still variable." return
- p.450: "If species be only well-marked and
permanent varieties, we can at once see why their crossed offspring should follow the same
complex laws in their degrees and kinds of resemblance to their parents,-in being absorbed
into each other by successive crosses, and in other such points,-as do the crossed offspring of
acknowledged varieties. This similarity would be a strange fact, if species had been
independently created and varieties had been produced through secondary laws." return
- p.452a: "On this view of migration, with
subsequent modification, we see why oceanic islands are inhabited by only few species, but of
these, why many are peculiar or endemic forms. We clearly see why species belonging to
those groups of animals which cannot cross wide spaces of the ocean, as frogs and terrestrial
mammals, do not inhabit oceanic islands; and why, on the other hand, new and peculiar
species of bats, animals which can traverse the ocean, are often found on islands far distant
from any continent. Such cases as the presence of peculiar species of bats on oceanic islands
and the absence of all other terrestrial mammals, are facts utterly inexplicable on the theory of
independent acts of creation." return
- p.452b: "It is a rule of high generality that the
inhabitants of each area are related to the inhabitants of the nearest source whence immigrants
might have been derived. We see this in the striking relation of nearly all the plants and
animals of the Galapagos Archipelago, of Juan Fernandez, and of the other American islands,
to the plants and animals of the neighbouring American mainland; and of those of the Cape de
Verde Archipelago and of the other African islands to the African mainland. It must be
admitted that these facts receive no explanation on the theory of creation." return
- p.454: "On the view of each organism with all its
separate parts having been specially created, how utterly inexplicable is it that organs
bearing the plain stamp of inutility, such as the teeth in the embryonic calf or the shrivelled
wings under the soldered wing-covers of many beetles, should so frequently occur." return
- p.455a: "I see no good reason why the views
given in this volume should shock the religious feelings of anyone. It is satisfactory, as
showing how transient such impressions are, to remember that the greatest discovery ever
made by man, namely the law of the attraction of gravity, was also attacked by Leibnitz, "as
subversive of natural, and inferentially of revealed, religion." A celebrated author and divine
has written to me that "he has gradually learnt to see that it is just as noble a conception of the
Deity to believe that He created a few original forms capable of self-development
into other and needful forms, as to believe that He required a fresh act of creation to
supply the voids caused by the action of His laws." return
- p.455b: "Why, it may be asked, until recently
did nearly all the most eminent living naturalists and geologists disbelieve in the mutability of
species. It cannot be asserted that organic beings in state of nature are subject to no variation;
it cannot be proved that the amount of variation in the course of long ages is a limited
quantity; no clear distinction has been, or can be, drawn between species and well-marked
varieties. It cannot be maintained that species when intercrossed are invariably sterile and
varieties invariably fertile; or that sterility is a special endowment and sign of
creation." return
- p.456: "Although I am fully convinced of the
truth of the views given in this volume under the form of an abstract, I by no means expect to
convince experienced naturalists whose minds are stocked with a multitude of facts all viewed,
during a long course of years, from a point of view directly opposite to mine. It is so easy to
hide our ignorance under such expressions as the "plan of creation," "unity of
design," etc., and to think that we give an explanation when we only re-state a fact." return
- pp.456-457: "Several eminent naturalists
have of late published their belief that a multitude of reputed species in each genus are not real
species; but that other species are real, that is, have been independently created. This
seems to me a strange conclusion to arrive at. They admit that a multitude of forms, which till
lately they themselves thought were special creations, and which are still thus looked
at by the majority of naturalists, and which consequently have all the external characteristic
features of true species,-they admit that these have been produced by variation, but they
refuse to extend the same view to other and slightly different forms." return
- p.457a: "Nevertheless they do not pretend that
they can define, or even conjecture, which are the created forms of life, and which
are those produced by secondary laws. They admit variation as a vera causa in one
case, they arbitrarily reject it in another, without assigning any distinction in the two cases.
The day will come when this will be given as a curious illustration of the blindness of
preconceived opinion." return
- p.457b: "These authors seem no more startled
at a miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary birth. But do they really believe
that at innumerable periods in the earth's history certain elemental atoms have been
commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues?" return
- p.457c: "Do they believe that at each supposed
act of creation one individual or many were produced?" return
- p.457d: "Were all the infinitely numerous kinds
of animals and plants created as eggs or seed, or as full grown?" return
- p.457e: "and in the case of mammals, were they
created bearing the false marks of nourishment from the mother's womb?" return
- p.457f: "Undoubtedly some of these same
questions cannot be answered by those who believe in the appearance or creation of
only a few forms of life, or of some one form alone." return
- p.457g: "It has been maintained by several
authors that it is as easy to believe in the creation of a million beings as of one; but
Maupertuis's philosophical axiom "of least action" leads the mind more willingly to admit the
smaller number" return
- p.457h: "and certainly we ought not to believe
that innumerable beings within each great class have been created with plain, but
deceptive, marks of descent from a single parent." return
- p.457i: "As a record of a former state of things,
I have retained in the foregoing paragraphs, and elsewhere, several sentences which imply that
naturalists believe in the separate creation of each species; and I have been much
censured for having thus expressed myself. But undoubtedly this was the general belief when
the first edition of the present work appeared." return
- pp.457-458: "There are, however, some
who still think that species have suddenly given birth, through quite unexplained means, to
new and totally different forms: but, as I have attempted to show, weighty evidence can be
opposed to the admission of great and abrupt modifications. Under a scientific point of view,
and as leading to further investigation, but little advantage is gained by believing that new
forms are suddenly developed in an inexplicable manner from old and widely different forms,
over the old belief in the creation of species from the dust of the earth." return
- p.460: "A grand and almost untrodden field of
inquiry will be opened on the causes and laws of variation, on correlation, on the effects of use
and disuse, on the direct action of external conditions, and so forth. The study of domestic
productions will rise immensely in value. A new variety raised by man will be a more
important and interesting subject for study than one more species added to the infinitude of
already recorded species. Our classifications will come to be, as far as they can be so made,
genealogies; and will then truly give what may be called the plan of creation." return
- p.461: "We must be cautious in attempting to
correlate as strictly contemporaneous two formations, which do not include many identical
species, by the general succession of the forms of life. As species are produced and
exterminated by slowly acting and still existing causes, and not by miraculous acts of
creation- and as the most important of all causes of organic change is one which is
almost independent of altered and perhaps suddenly altered physical conditions, namely, the
mutual relation of organism to organism,-the improvement of one organism entailing the
improvement or the extermination of others; it follows that the amount of organic change in
the fossils of consecutive formations probably serves as a fair measure of the relative, though
not actual lapse of time." return
- p.462a: "Authors of the highest eminence seem
to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created."
return
- p.462b: "To my mind it accords better with
what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production
and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to
secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual." return
- p.462c: "When I view all beings not as special
creations, but as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before
the first bed of the Cambrian system was deposited, they seem to me to become ennobled."
return
- p.463: "Thus, from the war of nature, from
famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the
production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with
its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms
or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of
gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have
been, and are being evolved." return
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Created: 29 January, 2002. Updated: 25 March, 2007.