Whoever is led to believe that
species are mutable will do good service by conscientiously expressing his
conviction; for thus only can the load of prejudice by which this subject
is overwhelmed be removed.
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.
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. 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? Do they believe that at each supposed act of creation one
individual or many were produced? Were all the infinitely numerous kinds
of animals and plants created as eggs or seed, or as full grown? and in the
case of mammals, were they created bearing the false marks of nourishment
from the mother's womb? 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.
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