BY
THOMAS R. R. STEBBING, M.A.
Late Fellow and Tutor of Worcester College, Oxford.
LONDON:LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.1871.
[All rights reserved]
OXFORD:
BY T. COMBE, M.A., E. B. GARDNER, AND E. PICKARD HALL,
PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.
The opinions of Mr. Darwin have now been for manyyears before the world. His own book on ‘The Originof Species by means of Natural Selection,’ unfolds andsupports them with admirable clearness of argument. Farfrom being an abstruse and tedious work, it carries thereader on with unflagging interest to the close. Observationsand experiments, some the most simple, some themost elaborate, notes on natural history, as well from everyquarter of the globe as from almost every province of nature,are brought to bear upon the subject without confusion ofthought or embarrassment of style. The language flowseasily in its calm, temperate, unegotistical course. Thereis no disguising of objections, no seeking of opponents. Thereis an evident searching after truth. Of its form or of itsshadow the author’s mind as evidently retains a brightclear vision, and what he sees he tries to make others seeas clearly as he sees it himself. The suspicion and dislikewhich are aroused in some minds by the very name ofDarwinism cannot be retained by those who read Mr.Darwin’s own description of his theory and the groundswhich slowly led him to adopt it. Few readers can bedull enough to feel no charm at finding the most unlooked-forresults deduced from the simplest illustrations, from oldfamiliar facts, from every-day occurrences, or at finding whativseem examples of the most special and varied contrivancereconciled to the simplicity of a single general law. Manyreaders will be inclined to whisper to themselves at manypassages, ‘we never thought of that before,’ ‘we never lookedat the matter in that light,’ ‘how curious if after all it shouldbe true,’ ‘it looks less wicked and silly than we used to thinkit.’ Whether the theory itself be right or wrong, the generaleffect of the book which describes it can only be to quickenthe minds of its readers, to enlarge for them the circle ofideas, to open up before them new lines of thought andenquiry, to let them see the whole face of nature teemingwith mysteries and revelations, an inexhaustible vintagefor the human reason to gather in.
Such being the character of Mr. Darwin’s own Work,the handful of Essays and Letters contained in the presentvolume, supporting the same views by almost the samearguments, may seem a superfluous contribution to theliterature of the question. And so it would be if all whocondemn and ridicule Darwinism would be at the pains tostudy Mr. Darwin’s Work. But opinions passed upon itand allusions made to it in common conversation and inpopular lectures often testify to nothing except supremeignorance of its general merits. To judge by such hearsay,one might believe that Mr. Darwin had lived all his life shutup in a dove-cote, and never seen or examined any otherliving creature than a pigeon. Another estimate will dismissthe whole subject, scathed with indignant laughter, by simplyexplaining, that, according to this fatuous theory, man isdescended from a monkey. Naturally no well-minded personswill consent to be pithecoid in origin, whether theyknow what pithecoid means or not; still less can a theory beaccepted as moral and