The Darwinian theory of the transmutation of species / examined by a graduate of the University of Cambridge.

  • Beverley, R. M. (Robert Mackenzie), 1797 or 1798-1868.
Date:
1867
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Darwinian theory of the transmutation of species / examined by a graduate of the University of Cambridge. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    YL FEE FA OF. ground held by his predecessor. In the method of man- aging the argument there is a difference between the two writers, but in the object of the argument there is none, so that the force of proof urged by Professor Sedgwick against the Vestiges, applies in most points against Mr Darwin’s Origin of Species. In the Edinburgh Review there have been some able articles on Mr Darwin’s Theory. In the April number of 18G3, an article, of which the title is, ‘Professor Huxley on Man’s place in Nature,’ is well worthy the careful at- tention of all those interested in this subject. The Review quotes an observation of Dugald Stewart: ‘ From those representations of human nature which tend to assimilate to each other the faculties of man and of the brutes, the transition to atheism is not very wide.’* This transition is pointed out in the following pages, and it is shown how with some of the disciples of Trans- mutation there is no wish to conceal the atheistic import of the Theory. The Edinburgh Review remarks ‘ that it is necessary we should know to what this so-called Theory of Development is leading us. If it means that all the phenomena of the universe are the result of Nature’s great progression from blind force to conscious intellect and will, to which alone we are to ascribe creative power, that is purely and simply the scientific form of the doctrine which denies a Creator altogether, or places the creative mind at an incalculable distance from its works ’ (p. 589). * One of these articles is from the pen of the Duke of Argyll, for a part of it at least re-appears in ‘ the Reign of Law,’ a book destined to celebrity for its successful opposition to Mr Darwin’s Theory, as well as for its other intrinsic merits.