IN thus characterizing the contents of Mr. Darwin's work, On the Origins of Species, our readers will understand that it contains much valuable knowledge, and much wild speculation. Interesting facts and idle fancies have seldom been combined in physical researches, and when such an alliance has been formed, the value of the new facts has often compensated for the errors of their application. There are many cases, indeed, in the history of science, where speculations, like those of Kepler, have led to great discoveries in the very attempts which they suggested in order to establish or to refute them. It is otherwise, however, with speculations which trench upon sacred ground, and which run counter to the universal convictions of mankind, poisoning the fountains of science, and disturbing the serenity of the Christian world. Such is doubtless the tendency of Mr. Darwin's work On the Origins of Species.
Trained in a less severe school than that of geometry and physics, his reasonings are almost always loose and inconclusive. His generalizations seem to have been reached before he had obtained the materials upon which he rests them: His facts, though frequently new and interesting, are often little more than conjectures; and the grand phenomena of the world of life, and instinct, and reason, which other minds have woven into noble and elevating truths, have thus become in Mr. Darwin's hands the basis of a dangerous and degrading speculation.
We cannot suppose that he intended to undermine the foundations of natural and revealed religion; but we cannot conceal our conviction that the hypothesis which he makes it the object of his life to support, has a tendency to expel the Almighty from the universe, to degrade the godlike race to which he has committed the development and appreciation of his power,— to render the revelation of his will an incredible superstition. That great Name, indeed, which true philosophy has never failed to respect, has not been wholly omitted in the pages of our author. It has no other title, however, but that which breathed life into one primordial form, from which all organic beings have been descended that have ever lived upon this earth — plant, fish, fowl, quadruped, and man! The Influence thus acknowledged, is the electric spark of previous speculator which disappears for ever, when it has lighted the train of causes and effects by which all the orders of organic life have been fashioned and perpetuated. That tender Parent who longs to gather His children "as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wing;" who opens when they knock; who gives good things to them that ask him, and without whose knowledge not a hair of their head falls to the ground, takes no charge of the family of orphans who people the gloomy universe of our author.
In order to justify those strictures, we must make our readers acquainted with Mr. Darwin's views as stated by himself; and as he appeals to facts and principles in their support, we must appeal to facts and principles in their refutation. Without any profound knowledge of natural history, or indeed without any knowledge of it at all, the nature of this remarkable speculation may be made plain to the lowest capacity, and the humblest inquirer may be made to understand that it has not one fact to support it, and though now presented in a new form, that it has been long ago refuted by the most distinguished of our naturalists.