These aberrations of thought have recently been manifested in a striking manner on the occasion of the publication of Mr. Darwin’s book.  This naturalist has given his attention to the transformation of organized types.  He has discovered that types vary more than is generally supposed; and that we probably take simple varieties for distinct species.  His discoveries will, I suppose, leave traces strongly marked enough in the history of science.  But Mr. Darwin is not merely an observer; he is a theorist, dominated evidently by a disposition to systematize.  Now minds of this character, which render, no doubt, signal services to the sciences of observation, are all like Pyrrhus, who, gazing on Andromache as he walked by her side,

     Still quaffed bewildering pleasure from the view.[121]

Their theory is their lady-love; they love it passionately, and passionate love always strongly excites the imagination.  Mr. Darwin then has put forth the hypothesis, that not only all animals, but all vegetables too, might have come from one and the same primitive type, from one and the same living cellule.  This supposes that there was at the beginning but one single species, an elementary and very slightly defined organization, from which all that lives descended in the way of regular generation.  The oak and the wild boar which eats its acorn, the cat and the flea which lodges in its fur, have common ancestors.  The family, originally one, has been divided under the influence of soil, climate, food, moisture, mode of life, and by virtue of the natural selection which has preserved and accumulated the favorable modifications which have occurred in the organism.  Mr. Darwin, I repeat, appears to me a man strongly disposed to systematize, but I do not on this account conclude that he is mistaken.  The question is, what opinion we must form of his doctrine on principles of experimental science?  Professor Owen[122] does not appear to allow it any value; M. Agassiz does not admit it at all;[123] and, without crossing the ocean, we might consult M. Pictet,[124] who would reply, that judging by the experimental data which we have at present, this doctrine is an hypothesis not confirmed by the observation of facts.  We will leave this controversy to naturalists.  What will remain eventually in their science of the system under discussion?  The answer belongs to the future enlightened by experience and by the employment of a sage induction.  What is the relation existing between these systematic views and the question of the Creator?  This is the sole object of our study.

The opinions of the English naturalist are very dubious as to the vital questions of religious philosophy.  I have pointed out to you the confusion of his ideas in the use which he makes of natural selection.  In the text of his book, he admits, in the special case of life, the intervention of the Creator for the production of the first living being, and he does not speak of man, except in an incidental sentence, which only attentive readers will take any notice of.  If we do not take the liberty to look a little below the surface, we must say that Mr. Darwin remains on the ground of natural history.  Therefore I spoke to you of the aberrations of philosophic thought which have been produced on the occasion of his book.  These aberrations are the following: