infinitum. Once grant these two things, and the rest is a mere
matter of time and degree. That the immense differences between the
camel and the pig should have come about in six thousand years is not
believable; but in six hundred million years it is not incredible,
more especially when we consider that by the assistance of geology a
very perfect chain has been formed between the two. Let this
instance suffice. Once grant the principles, once grant that
competition is a great power in Nature, and that changes of
circumstances and habits produce a tendency to variation in the
offspring (no matter how slight such variation may be), and unless
you can define the possible limit of such variation during an
infinite series of generations, unless you can show that there is a
limit, and that Darwin's theory over-steps it, you have no right to
reject his conclusions. As for the objections to the theory, Darwin
has treated them with admirable candour, and our time is too brief to
enter into them here. My recommendation to you is that you should
read the book again.

C. Thank you, but for my own part I confess to caring very little
whether my millionth ancestor was a gorilla or no; and as Darwin's
book does not please me, I shall not trouble myself further about the
matter.



BARREL-ORGANS: [From the Press, 17 January, 1863.]



Dugald Stewart in his Dissertation on the Progress of Metaphysics