Essays on Darwinism

BY THOMAS R. R. STEBBING, M.A.
Late Fellow and Tutor of Worcester College, Oxford.
LONDON: LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 1871.
OXFORD: BY T. COMBE, M.A., E. B. GARDNER, AND E. PICKARD HALL, PRINTERS TO THE UNIVERSITY.

The opinions of Mr. Darwin have now been for many years before the world. His own book on ‘The Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection,’ unfolds and supports them with admirable clearness of argument. Far from being an abstruse and tedious work, it carries the reader on with unflagging interest to the close. Observations and experiments, some the most simple, some the most elaborate, notes on natural history, as well from every quarter of the globe as from almost every province of nature, are brought to bear upon the subject without confusion of thought or embarrassment of style. The language flows easily in its calm, temperate, unegotistical course. There is no disguising of objections, no seeking of opponents. There is an evident searching after truth. Of its form or of its shadow the author’s mind as evidently retains a bright clear vision, and what he sees he tries to make others see as clearly as he sees it himself. The suspicion and dislike which are aroused in some minds by the very name of Darwinism cannot be retained by those who read Mr. Darwin’s own description of his theory and the grounds which slowly led him to adopt it. Few readers can be dull enough to feel no charm at finding the most unlooked-for results deduced from the simplest illustrations, from old familiar facts, from every-day occurrences, or at finding what seem examples of the most special and varied contrivance reconciled to the simplicity of a single general law. Many readers will be inclined to whisper to themselves at many passages, ‘we never thought of that before,’ ‘we never looked at the matter in that light,’ ‘how curious if after all it should be true,’ ‘it looks less wicked and silly than we used to think it.’ Whether the theory itself be right or wrong, the general effect of the book which describes it can only be to quicken the minds of its readers, to enlarge for them the circle of ideas, to open up before them new lines of thought and enquiry, to let them see the whole face of nature teeming with mysteries and revelations, an inexhaustible vintage for the human reason to gather in.