OBJECTIONS TO KR. DARWIN'S THEORY OF THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES.

REVISED AHD CORRECTED BY THE AUTHOR.

The remarks on Darwin's Theory of Species (sent to our office by the Archbishop. of Dublin), are reprinted, word for word, as they were re- turned to us by their author. In justice to him we adopt this course, as in consequence of his absence from his usual place' of residence, our proof sheets did not reach him in time for orrr previous publication.

Before writing about the transmutation theory, I must give you a skeleton of what the theory is :-

let. Species are not permanent; varieties are the beginning of new species.

2d. Nature began from the simplest forms—probably from one form— /tie primeval monad, the parent of all organic life.

3d. There has been a continual ascent on the organic scale, till organic nature became what it is, by one continued and unbroken stream of on- ward movement.

4th. The organic ascent is secured by a Malthusian principle through nature,—by a battle of life, in which the best in organization (the best varieties of plants and animals) encroach upon and drive off the less per- fect. This is called the theory of natural eelection. It is admirably worked up, and contains a great body of important truth ; and it is eminently amusing. But it gives no element of strength to the fundamental theory of transmutation ; and without specific trans- mutations natural selection can do nothing for the general theory.* The * It is worth remarking that though no species of the horse genus was found in America when discovered, two or three fossil species have heed found there. Now, if these horses had (through some influence of climate) been transmuted into tapirs or buffaloes, one might expect to see the ten- dency at least towards such a change in the numerous 'herds of wild horses —the descendants of those brought from Europe—which are now found in both South and North America. flora and fauna of North America are very different from what they were when the Pilgrim Fathers were driven out from old England ; but, changed as they are, they do not one jot change the collective fauna sad flora of the actual world.

6th. We do not mark any great organic changes now, because they are so slow that even a few thousand years may produce no changes that have fixed the notice of naturalists.

6th. But time is the agent, and we can mark the effects of time by the organic changes on the great geological scale. And on every part of that scale where the organic changes are great in two contiguous deposits of the

scale, there must have been a corresponding lapse of time between the periods of their deposition—perhaps millions of years.

I think the foregoing heads give the substance of Darwin's theory; and I think that the great broad facts of geology are directly opposed to it.

Some of these facts I shall presently refer to. But I must in the first place observe that Darwin's theory is not inductive,—not based on a series of acknowledged facts pointing to a general conclusion,—not a pro- position evolved out of the facts, logically, and of course including them. To use an old figure, I look on the theory as a vast pyramid resting on its apex and that apex a mathematical point. The only facts he pre- tends a adduce, as true elements of proof, are the varieeks produced by domestication, or the human artifice of cross-breeding. We all admit the varieties, and the very wide limits of variation, among domestic animals. How very unlike are poodles, and greyhounds! Yet they are of one species. And how nearly alike are many animals,—allowed to be of distinct species, on any acknowledged views of species. Hence there may have been very many blunders among naturalists, in the discrimi- nation and enumeration of species. But this does not undermine the grand truth of nature_, and the continuity of true species. Again, the varie- ties, built upon by M. Darwin are varieties of domestication and human design. Such varieties could have no existence in the old world. Some- thing may be done by cross-breeding; but mules are generally sterile, or the progeny (in some rare instances) passes into one of the original crossed forms. The Author of Nature will not permit His work to be spoiled by the wanton curiosity of Man. And in a state of nature (such as that of the old world before Man came upon it) wild animals of differ- ent species do not desire to cross and unite. Species have been constant for thousands of years; and time (so far as I see my way) though multiplied by millions and billions would never change them, so long as the conditions remained constant. Change the conditions, and old species would disappear; and new species might have room to come in and flourish. But how, and by what causation? I say by creation. But, what do I mean by creation ? I reply, the operatiorr of a power quite beyond the powers of a pigeon-fancier, a cross-breeder, or hybridizer - a power I cannot imitate or comprehend; but in which I can believe hybridizer; a legitimate conclusion of sound reason drawn from the laws and harmonies of Nature. For I can see in all around me a design and purpose, and a mutual adaptation of parts, which I can compre- hend,—and which prove that there is exterior to, and above, the mere phenomena of Nature a great prescient and designing cause. Believing this, I have no difficulty in the repetition of new species during succes- sive epochs in the history of the earth. But Darwin would say I am introducing a miracle by the supposition. In one sense, I am ; in another, I am not. The hypothesis does not sus- pend or interrupt an established law of Nature. It does suppose the in- troduction of a new phenomenon unaccounted for by the operation of any known law of Nature ; and it appeals to a power above established laws, and yet acting in harmony and conformity with them.

The pretended physical philosophy of modern days strips Man of all his moral attributes, or holds them of no account in the estimate of his origin and place in the created world. A cold atheistical materialism is the tendency of the so-called material philosophy of the present day. Not that I believe that Darwin is an atheist; though I cannot but re- gard his materialism as atheistical ; because it ignores all rational con- ception of a final cause. I think it untrue, because opposed to the ob- vious course of Nature, and the very opposite of inductive truth. I therefore think it intensely mischievous.

Let no one say that it is held together by a cumulative argument. Each series of facts is laced together by a series of assumptions, which are mere repetitions of the one false principle. You cannot make a good rope out of a string of air-bubbles.

I proceed now to notice the manner in which Darwin tries to fit his principles to the facts of geology.

I will take for granted that the known series of fossil-bearing rocks or deposits may be divided into the Paleozoic; the Mesozoic; the Tertiary or Neozoic ; and the Modern—the Fens, Deltas, &c., 8ce., with the spoils of the actual flora and fauna of the world, and with wrecks of the works of Man.

To begin then, with the Paleozoic rocks. Surely we ought on the transmutation theory, to find near their base great deposits with none but the lowest forms of organic life. I know of no such deposits. Oken

contends that life began with the infusorial forms. They are at any rate well fitted for fossil preservation; but we do not find them. Neither

do we find beds exclusively of hard corals and other humble organisms,

which ought, on the theory, to mark a period of vast duration while the primeval monads were working up into the higher types of life. Our evidence is, no doubt, very scanty; but let not our opponents dare to say

that it makes for them. So far as it is positive, it seems to me point- blank against them. If we build upon imperfect evidence, they com- mence without any evidence whatsoever, and against the evidence of tic,- turd nature. As we ascend in the great stages of the Paleozoic series (through Cambrian, Silurian, Devonian, and Carboniferous rocks) we have in each a characteristic fauna ; we have no wavering of species,

—we have the noblest cephalopods and brachiopods that ever existed; and they preserve their typical forms till they disappear. And a few of the types have endured, with specific modifications, through all succeed- ing ages of the earth. It is during these old periods that we have some of the noblest icthyo forms that ever were created. The same may be said, I think, of the carboniferous flora. As a whole, indeed, it is lower than the living flora of our own period; but many of the old types were grander and of higher organization than the corresponding families of the living flora; and there is no wavering, no wanting of organic definition, in the old types. We have some land reptiles (batrachians), in the higher Paleozoic periods, but not of a very low type ; and the reptiles of the pennian_ groups (at the very top or the Pakeoioic rocks,) are of a high type. If all this be true, (and I think it Is,) it gives but a sturdy grist for the transmutation-mill, and may soon break its cofis•I'

We know the complicated organic phenomena of the Mesozoic (or Oolitic) period. It defies the transmutationist at every step. Oh! but the document, says Darwin, is a fragment I will interpolate long pe- riods to account for all the changes. lacy, in reply, if you deny my con- clusion grounded on positive evidence, I toss back your conclusions, de- rived from negative evidence—the inflated cushion on which you try to bolster up the defects of your hypothesis. The reptile fauna of the Mesozoic period is the grandest and highest that ever lived. How came these reptiles to die off or to degenerate ? And how came the Dinosaurs to disappear from the face of Nature, and leave no descendants like themselves, or of a corresponding nobility ? By what process of natural selection did they disappear ? Did they tire of the land, and become Whales, casting off their hind-legs ? And, after they had lasted millions of years as whales, did they tire of the water, and leap out again as Pachyderms? I have heard of both hypotheses ; and I cannot put them into words without seeming to use the terms of mockery. This I do affirm, that if the transmutation theory were proved true in the ac- tual world, and we could hatch rats out of the eggs of geese, it would still be difficult to account for the successive forms of organic life in the old world. They appear to me to give the lie to the theory of transmuta- tion at every turn of the pages of Dame Nature's old book.

The limits of this letter compel me to omit any long discussion of the Tertiary Mammals, of course including man at their head. On physical grounds, the transmutation theory is untrue, if we reason (as we ought to do) from the known to the unknown. To this rule, the Tertiary Mammals offer us no exception. Nor is there any proof, either ethno- graphical or physical, of the bestial origin of man.

And now for a few words upon Darwin's long interpolated periods of geological ages. He has an eternity of past time to draw upon ; and I sin willing to give him ample measure ; only let him use it logically, and in some probable accordance with facts and phenomena. let. I place the theory against facts viewed collectively. I see no proofs of enormous gaps of geological time, (I say nothing of years or cen- turies,) in those cases where there is a sudden change in the ancient fauna and flora. I am willing, out of the stock of past time, to lavish millions or billions upon each epoch, if thereby we can gain rational results from the operation of true causes. But time and "natural selection" can do nothing if there be not a vera causa working with them4 I must confine myself to a very small number of the collective instances.

2d. Towards the end of the carboniferous period, there was a vast ex- tinction of animal and vegetable life. We can, I think, account for this extinction mechanically. The old crust was broken up. The sea bottom underwent a great change. The old flora and fauna went out; and a new flora and fauna appeared, in the ground, now called permian, at the base of the new red sandstone, which overlies the carboniferous rocks. I take the fact as it is, and I have no difficulty. The time in which all this was brought about may have been very long, even upon a geological scale of time. But where do the intervening and connecting types exist, which are to mark the work of natural selection ? We do do not find them. Therefore, the step onwards gives no true resting-place to a baseless theory; and is, in fact, a stumbling-block in its way. 3d. Before we rise through the new red sandstone, we find the muschel-kalk (wanting in England, though its place on the scale is well-known) with an entirely new fauna : where have we a proof of any enormous lapse of geological time to account for the change? We have no proof in the deposits themselves : the presumption they offer to our senses is of a contrary kind.

4th. If we rise from the muschel-kalk to the lies, we find again a new fauna. All the anterior species are gone. Yet the passage through the upper members of the new red sandstone to the Lies is by insensible gradations, and it is no easy matter to fix the physical line of their de- marcation. I think it would be a very rash assertion to affirm that a great geological interval took place between the formation of the upper part of the new red sandstone and the lies. Physical evidence is against it. To support a baseless theory, Darwin would require a count, less lapse of ages of which we have no commensurate physical monu- ments; and he is unable to supply any of the connecting organic links that ought to bind together the older fauna with that of the lies.

/ I cannot go on any further with these objections. But I will not conclude without expressing my deep aversion to the theory ; because of its unflinching materialism ;—because it has deserted the inductive track,— the only track that leads to physical truth ;—because it utterly repuiteres final causes, and thereby indicates a demoralized understanding- on the part of its advocates. By the word, demoralized, I mean a want of (-ra- pacity for comprehending the force of moral evidence, which is depen- dent on the highest faculties of our nature. What is it that gives us the sense of right and wrong, of law, of duty, of cause and effect? What is it that enables us to construct true theories on good inductive evidence ? Theories which enable WI, whether in the material or the moral world, to link together the past and the present. What is it that enables us to anticipate the future, to act wisely with reference to future good, to be- have in a future state, to acknowledge the being of a God ? These facul- ties, and many others of hlre kind, are a part of ourselves; quite as much , so as our organs of sense. All nature is subordinate to law. Every organ of every sentient being has its purpose bound up in the very law of its ex- istence. Are the highest conceptions of man, to which he is led by the necessities of his moral nature, to have no counterpart or fruition ? Are

they all a cheat and a mockery, and therefore out of harmony with nature ? I say no, to all such questions; and fearlessly affirm that we cannot spe- culate on man's position in the actual world of nature, on his destinies,

or on his origin, while we keep his highest faculties out of our sight Strip him of these faculties, and he becomes entirely bestial ; and he may

well be (under such a false and narrow view) nothing better than the natural progeny of of a beast, which has to live, to beget its likeness, and then die for ever.

t I forebear to mention the Stagonolepie, a very highly organized reptile, the remains of which were found, by Sir It. L Murchison, in a rock near Elgin, supposed to belong to the old red sandstone. Some doubts have been expressed about the age of the deposit. Should the first opinion prove true (and I think it will), we shall then have one of the oldest reptiles of the world exhibiting, not a very low, but a very high organic type. See reference on lime, in the Annotations on Bacon's Essays,

By gazing only on material nature, a man may easily have his very senses bewildered Pre one under the cheatery of an electro-bio

he may become so frozen up, by a too long contimted and exdun material study, as to lose his relish for moral truth, and his vivacity in apprehending it. I think I can see traces of this effect, both in the ori- gin and in the details of certain portions of Darwin's theory; and, in confirmation of what I now write, I would appeal to all that he states about those marvellous stractures,—the comb of a common honey-bee, and the eye of a mammal. His explanations iliake demands on our cre- dulity, that are utterly beyond endurance, and do not give us one true natural step towards an explanation of the phenomena—viz., the perfec- tion of the structures, and their adaptation to their office. There is a light by which a man may see and comprehend facts and truths such as these. But Darwin wilfully shuts it out from our senses; either because he does not apprehend its power, or because he disbelieves in its exist- ence. This is the grand blemish of his work. Separated from his sterile and contracted theory, it contains very admirable details and beautiful views of nature,—especially in those chapters which relate to the battle of life, the variations of species, and their diffusion through wide regions of the earth.

In some rare instances, Darwin shows a wonderful credulity. He seems to believe that a white bear, by being confined to the slops floating in the Polar basin, might in time be turned into a whale; that a lemur might easily be turned into abut; that a three-toed tapir might be the great grandfather of a horse ; or that the progeny of a horse may (in America) have gone back into the tapir.

But any startling and (supposed) novel paradox—maintained very boldly and with an imposing plausibility, derived from a great array- of facts all interpreted hypothetically—produces, in some minds, a kind of pleasing excitement., which predisposes them in its favour : and if they are unused to careful reflection, and averse to the labour of accurate in- vestigation, they will be likely to conclude that what is (apparently) original, must be a production of original genius, and that anything very much opposed to prevailing notions must be a grand discovery, —in short, that whatever comes from the bottom of a well' must be the "truth" which has been long hidden there.