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 every external
characteristic feature of true species,--they admit that these have
been produced by variation, but they refuse to extend the same view to
other and very 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?
Although naturalists very properly demand a full explanation of every
difficulty from those who believe in the mutability of species, on
their own side they ignore the whole subject of the first appearance
of species in what they consider reverent silence.
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