Natural selection not inconsistent with natural theology : a free examination of Darwin's treatise On the origin of species, and of its American reviewers / by Asa Gray.

  • Gray, Asa, 1810-1888.
Date:
1861
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Natural selection not inconsistent with natural theology : a free examination of Darwin's treatise On the origin of species, and of its American reviewers / by Asa Gray. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    A FREE EXAMINATION OF DARWIN ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. ARTICLE I. Novelties are enticing to most people: to us they are simply an- ' noying. We cling to a long-accepted theory, just as we cling to an old iiuit of clothes. A new theory, like a new pair of breeches, (the Atlan- i ic still affects the older type of nether garment,) is sure to have hard- idtting places ; or even when no particular fault can be found with the iirticle, it oppresses with a sense of general discomfort. New notions iijid new styles worry us, till we get well used to them, which is only riy slow degrees. Wherefore, in Galileo’s time, we might have helped to proscribe, or 00 burn — had he been stubborn enough to warrant cremation — even :he great pioneer of inductive research ; although, when we had fairly recovered our composure, and had leisurely excogitated the matter, we might have come to conclude that the new doctrine was better than the ! Id one, after all,*at least for those who had nothing to unlearn. ' Such being our habitual state of mind, it may well be believed that ‘ he perusal of the new book “ On the Origin of Species by Means of 1 Natural Selection ” left an uncomfortable impression, in spite of its plau- Uble and winning ways. We were not wholly unprepared for it, as •lany of our contemporaries seem to have been. The scientific reading 1 which we indulge as a relaxation from severer studies had raised dim jrebodings. Investigations about the succession of species in time, and leir actual geographical distribution over the earth’s surface, were lead- -ig up from all sides and in various ways to the question of their origin, low and then we encountered a sentence, like Professor Owen’s “axiom f the continuous operation of the ordained becoming of living things,’’ hich haunted us like an apparition. For, dim as our conception must