Natural Selection Not Inconsistent with Natural Theology: A Free Examination of Darwin's Treatise on the Origin of Species, and of Its American Reviewers

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Trübner & Company, 1861 - 55 pages

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Page 28 - Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth Sixth after his kind " : and it was so. And God made the Day beast of the earth after his kind...
Page 13 - 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...
Page 13 - ... been stated that I attribute the modification of species exclusively to natural selection, I may be permitted to remark that in the first edition of this work, and subsequently, I placed in a most conspicuous position — namely, at the close of the Introduction the following words : "I am convinced that natural selection has been the main but not the exclusive means of modification.
Page 21 - ... and failures utterly dishearten him. All these things, it may naturally be said, go to explain the order, not the mode, of the incoming of species. But they all do tend to bring out the generalization expressed by Mr. Wallace in the formula that " every species has come into existence coincident both in time and space with preexisting closely-allied species.
Page 13 - ... such low and intermediate form, both animals and plants may have been developed; and, if we admit this, we must likewise admit that all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth may be descended from some one primordial form. But this inference is chiefly grounded on analogy, and it is immaterial whether or not it be accepted.
Page 37 - 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?
Page 13 - I believe that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number.
Page 13 - Therefore I should infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth, have descended from some one primordial form, into which life was first breathed.
Page 45 - 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?
Page 26 - 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," &c., and to think that we give an explanation when we only restate a fact.

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