Perhaps the author is more familiar with natural-historical than with
philosophical inquiries, and, not having decided which particular
theory about efficient cause is best founded, he meanwhile argues the
scientific questions concerned--all that relates to secondary
causes--upon purely scientific grounds, as he must do in any case.
Perhaps, confident, as he evidently is, that his view will finally be
adopted, he may enjoy a sort of satisfaction in hearing it denounced
as sheer atheism by the inconsiderate, and afterwards, when it takes
its place with the nebular hypothesis and the like, see this judgment
reversed, as we suppose it would be in such event.

Whatever Mr. Darwin's philosophy may be, or whether he has any, is a
matter of no consequence at all, compared with the important
questions, whether a theory to account for the origination and
diversification of animal and vegetable forms through the operation of
secondary causes does or does not exclude design; and whether the
establishment by adequate evidence of Darwin's particular theory of
diversification through variation and natural selection would
essentially alter the present scientific and philosophical grounds for
theistic views of Nature. The unqualified affirmative judgment
rendered by the two Boston reviewers--evidently able and practised
reasoners--"must give us pause." We hesitate to advance our
conclusions in opposition to theirs. But, after full and serious
consideration, we are constrained to say, that, in our opinion, the
adoption of a derivative hypothesis, and of Darwin's particular
hypothesis, if we understand it, would leave the doctrines of final
causes, utility, and special design just where they were before. We do
not pretend that the subject is not environed with difficulties. Every
view is so environed; and every shifting of the view is likely, if it
removes some difficulties, to bring others into prominence. But we