urpose
of answering the question, What is Darwinism? The discussion of the
merits of the theory was not within the scope of the writer. What
follows, therefore, is to be considered only in the light of a practical
conclusion.

1. The first objection to the theory is its _prima facie_ incredibility.
That a single plant or animal should be developed from a mere cell, is
such a wonder, that nothing but daily observation of the fact could
induce any man to believe it. Let any one ask himself, suppose this
fact was not thus familiar, what amount of speculation, of arguments
from analogies, possibilities, and probabilities, could avail to produce
conviction of its truth. But who can believe that all the plants and
animals which have ever existed upon the face of the earth, have been
evolved from one such germ? This is Darwin's doctrine. We are aware that
this apparent impossibility is evaded by the believers in spontaneous
generation, who hold that such germ cells may be produced anywhere and
at all times. But this is not Darwinism. Darwin wants us to believe that
all living things, from the lowly violet to the giant redwoods of
California, from the microscopic animalcule to the Mastodon, the
Dinotherium,--monsters the very description of which fill us with
horror,--bats with wings twenty feet in breadth, flying dragons,
tortoises ten feet high and eighteen feet long, etc., etc., came one and
all from the same primordial germ. This demand is the more unreasonable
when we remember that these living creatures are not only so different,
but are, as to plants and animals, directly opposed in their functions.
The function of the plant, as biologists express it, is to produce
force, that of the animal to expend it. The plant, in virtue of a power
peculiar to itself, which no art or skill of man can imitate, transmutes
dead inorganic matter into organic matter, suited to the sustenance of
animal life, and without which animals cannot live. The gulf, therefore,
between the plant and animal would seem to be impassable.

Further, the variations by which the change of species is effected are
so trifling as often to be imperceptible, and their accumulation of them
so slow as to evade notice,--the time requisite to accomplish any marked
change must be counted by millions, or milliards of years. Here is
another demand on our credulity. The apex is reached when we are told
that all these transmutations are effected by chance, that is, with