All real origination, the
philosophers will say, is supernatural; their very question is,
whether we have yet gone back to the origin, and can affirm that the
present forms of plants and animals are the primordial, the
miraculously created ones. And even if they admit that, they will
still inquire into the order of the phenomena, into the form of the
miracle. You might as well expect the child to grow up content with
what it is told about the advent of its infant brother. Indeed, to
learn that the new-comer is the gift of God, far from lulling
inquiry, only stimulates speculation as to how the precious gift was
bestowed. That questioning child is father to the man,--is
philosopher in short-clothes.
Since, then, questions about the origin of species will be raised,
and have been raised,--and since the theorizings, however different
in particulars, all proceed upon the notion that one species of plant
or animal is somehow derived from another, that the different sorts
which now flourish are lineal (or unlineal) descendants of other and
earlier sorts,--it now concerns us to ask, What are the grounds in
Nature, the admitted facts, which suggest hypotheses of derivation,
in some shape or other? Reasons there must be, and plausible ones,
for the persistent recurrence of theories upon this genetic basis.
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