Chapter VIII: Conclusion

Such are my reasons for believing that specific forms are not immutable. The affinity of different groups, the unity of types of structure, the representative forms through which foetus passes, the metamorphosis of organs, the abortion of others cease to be metaphorical expressions and become intelligible facts. We no longer look <an> on animal as a savage does at a ship{179}, or other great work of art, as a thing wholly beyond comprehension, but we feel far more interest in examining it. How interesting is every instinct, when we speculate on their origin as an hereditary or congenital habit or produced by the selection of individuals differing slightly from their parents. We must look at every complicated mechanism and instinct, as the summary of a long history, <as the summing up> of{180} useful contrivances, much like a work of art. How interesting does the distribution of all animals become, as throwing light on ancient geography. [We see some seas bridged over.] Geology loses in its glory from the imperfection of its archives{181}, but how does it gain in the immensity of the periods of its formations and of the gaps separating these formations. There is much grandeur in looking at the existing animals either as the lineal descendants of the forms buried under thousand feet of matter, or as the coheirs of some still more ancient ancestor. It accords with what we know of the law impressed on matter by the Creator, that the creation and extinction of forms, like the birth and death of individuals should be the effect of secondary [laws] means{182}. It is derogatory that the Creator of countless systems of worlds should have created each of the myriads of creeping parasites and [slimy] worms which have swarmed each day of life on land and water <on> [this] one globe. We cease being astonished, however much we may deplore, that a group of animals should have been directly created to lay their eggs in bowels and flesh of other,--that some organisms should delight in cruelty,--that animals should be led away by false instincts,--that annually there should be an incalculable waste of eggs and pollen. From death, famine, rapine, and the concealed war of nature we can see that the highest good, which we can conceive, the creation of the higher animals has directly come. Doubtless it at first transcends our humble powers, to conceive laws capable of creating individual organisms, each characterised by the most exquisite workmanship and widely-extended adaptations. It accords better with [our modesty] the lowness of our faculties to suppose each must require the fiat of a creator, but in the same proportion the existence of such laws should exalt our notion of the power of the omniscient Creator{183}. There is a simple grandeur in the view of life with its powers of growth, assimilation and reproduction, being originally breathed into matter under one or a few forms, and that whilst this our planet has gone circling on according to fixed laws, and land and water, in a cycle of change, have gone on replacing each other, that from so simple an origin, through the process of gradual selection of infinitesimal changes, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been evolved{184}.

{179} The simile of the savage and the ship occurs in the _Origin_,
Ed. i. p. 485, vi. p. 665.

{180} In the _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 486, vi. p. 665, the author speaks
of the "summing up of many contrivances": I have therefore
introduced the above words which make the passage clearer. In the
_Origin_ the comparison is with "a great mechanical
invention,"--not with a work of art.

{181} See a similar passage in the _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 487, vi. p.
667.

{182} See the _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 488, vi. p. 668.

{183} The following discussion, together with some memoranda are on
the last page of the MS. "The supposed creative spirit does not
create either number or kind which <are> from analogy adapted to site
(viz. New Zealand): it does not keep them all permanently adapted
to any country,--it works on spots or areas of creation,--it is not
persistent for great periods,--it creates forms of same groups in
same regions, with no physical similarity,--it creates, on islands
or mountain summits, species allied to the neighbouring ones, and
not allied to alpine nature as shown in other mountain
summits--even different on different island of similarly
constituted archipelago, not created on two points: never mammifers
created on small isolated island; nor number of organisms adapted
to locality: its power seems influenced or related to the range of
other species wholly distinct of the same genus,--it does not
equally effect, in amount of difference, all the groups of the same
class."

{184} This passage is the ancestor of the concluding words in the
first edition of the _Origin of Species_ which have remained
substantially unchanged throughout subsequent editions, "There is
grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been
originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that whilst
this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of
gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful
and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved." In the 2nd
edition "by the Creator" is introduced after "originally breathed."

N.B.--There ought somewhere to be a discussion from Lyell to show that external conditions do vary, or a note to Lyell's works <work?>.

Besides other difficulties in ii. Part, non-acclimatisation of plants. Difficulty when asked _how_ did white and negro become altered from common intermediate stock: no facts. We do NOT know that species are immutable, on the contrary. What arguments against this theory, except our not perceiving every step, like the erosion of valleys{185}.

{185} Compare the _Origin_, Ed. i. p. 481, vi. p. 659, "The
difficulty is the same as that felt by so many geologists, when
Lyell first insisted that long lines of inland cliffs had been
formed, and great valleys excavated, by the slow action of the
coast-waves."

THE ESSAY OF 1844 PART I