[B102]

July 25 (1869) Man.

After Reading Quarterly R. After rudiments in man & Homologies & Embryology

Hence we cannot look at man as a separate & designed creation. Having said this I may add that it is = possible that all the forms of life, including man, may have been from the first commencement of life designed.

I have discussed this subject in last pages of my work on Var. under Dom & have then [illeg] how we are driven to two opposite conclusions, a sort of instinct tells us to is designed, yet it is scarcely possible to admit that all the [2 words illeg] slight variations to which all organisms are subject, are designed, for it presumes to which they have be brought to bear so we shd have to admit that the variations by which a Pouter pigeon is formed are especially designed, which I for one cannot believe - nor can I suppose that when a bird is blown by a gale of wind from one continent to another, that this is a specially designed accident; yet on a long succession of such accidents (as we must call them) that complex association or circumstance depends, which determine which form of life shall be preserved & which rejected.

[102v]

With respect to selection or the survival of the fittest which depends on infinitely complex commencement; some may believe, for instance, that the flight of a flock of birds, or the wafting of seeds, & then transported by a gale of wind across an open sea to some distant islds may have been predesigned for the special purpose of this bird or plant being modified in its new insular home; but I for one cannot believe in this, for it comes to believing that all the [illeg] of every animal & every puff of air have been specially advanced from the beginning of all things.