to be the construction given to Darwin's idea by Haeckel. (3-1-42-3).

According to Quartrefages: "Species are individuals resembling each other more or less, which may be regarded as having descended from a single primitive pair by an uninterrupted and natural succession of families."

Prof. Rice (26 N. Englander, 604) says: "A species has been defined as a group of individuals descended from a common pair. In order to avoid a disputed question this definition may be modified as follows: A group of individuals presenting individual differences compatible with possible community of descent."

There are between 60 and 70 elementary substances, which with their endless combinations make up the entire composition of the globe. These substances and their compounds we call matter, as distinguished from life or mind; and they constitute as well, the bodies of all living organisms.

Sixteen of these substances make up the bulk of the earth, and of its organic forms, to wit:— Oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, fluorine, chlorine, carbon, sulphur, phosphorous, silicon, albuminum, potassium, sodium, calcium, magnesium, iron and manganese.

Advancing a step further within the limits of physical causation, we find that the earth, and all the elementary substances of which it is composed, owe their existence to the sun. Thus far we can

composition of living forms, irrespective of their life. It is also well established that inorganic nature has been brought into existence and to its present forms, by gradual processes and from simpler elements. The hardest rocks, and the most rigid metals, equally with water and air are but the results in a regular chain of causes, from the action of prior incandescent gases, which contained the elements of all that followed.

We then come to the great question: What is the origin of the vast numbers of the species of plants and animals upon the earth, having a compound existence of life and material substances? How came they to be differentiated into species ?

This question involves that of the creation of the universe, physical and psychical-the universe of life and of the organic forms by which life is manifested. It involves the methods by which all things have been produced.

Assuming that the earth and its organic forms are the work of a personal Creator, there would then be, relatively, but two order of existences, the Creator and the created-the one uncreate, infinite, stable and perfect-the other imperfect, limited and changeable. This relative imperfection would result as a necessity of creation, inasmuch as it is not a supposable idea that the Creator could or would duplicate himself. Nevertheless, created things have a degree of relative perfection. Thus oxygen, though ever changing in connection with other material substances-some

remains perfect oxygen. So the mind or soul of man, from its attribute of imperfectibility, changing from good to bad, and bad to good, and all their intermediates, remains mind and nothing else.

The logic of creation lies in its unity, uniformity and completeness. As a question of power, it requires the same degree of force to create an insect and a planet--no more, no less. It is a unit, because it culminates in man as the ultimate design of the Creator. Every step in the process has evidently had reference to that which was to follow-a cause to the effect to be produced. The creation of the gigantic ferns and other vegetable growths of the carboniferous era, were steps in the production of coal deposits, so necessary to modern civilization--the creation of the lowest monad was a step in the creation of man.

How creation has been effected is the vexed question of the day. The old belief asserts the formation of the first of every species in full maturity, without passing through a germinal or embryological state. The first man, male and female, had no infancy or childhood—the first of every species of plant, no seed or germination.*

This

*The utter crudeness of the idea is well illustrated by the following extract from a sermon of Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans : "God took a little earth in his divine hands, and it pleased himself to mould therefrom the body of a man, and this clay fashioned by such hands, soon received the most beautiful and robust form that had yet appeared in the world. Nevertheless that was but an admirable statue, and not the image and likeness of God. Then God breathed into its face the breath of life spiraculum vitæ, the

belief grew out of prior states of human simplicity and credulity, when opinions were formed upon appearances-when the sun was supposed to revolve around the earth, and the latter was believed to be an extended plane.

But the world is out-growing its infantile state and demands a theory consistent with scientific induction; and which may stand the test of enlightened discussion. Hence the origin and growth of the doctrine of evolution, founded on a series of facts inconsistent with the old faith. And it may be safely assumed that evolution of some kind has become the prevailing idea of men of science, and the aspect is that it will generally prevail.

Evolution, however, divides itself into that of the theist, and that of the strict materialist, and the real controversy is between the two. The one looks to a First Cause, and the evidences of design, while the other ignores both. Heretofore the controversy has been between Theology and Science; but since there is no dispute about the controlling facts, it must hereafter be carried on irrespective of religious creeds.

Among the problems to be solved in this contest are, whether matter is self-existent, and from its self constituted properties originated living forms; or whether it was created and made recipint of inflowing life from a personal and intellient First Cause; whether species originated

re inspiration of eternal and divine life, and man became a living

from one or more primordial types, by branching out into multitudinous varieties as the result of a struggle for existence, co-ordinate with other natural influences; or whether they were created by the influx of the life of a new species into prior forms as each progressive period made new forms of life necessary.

No absolute certainty can be reached; and that theory must eventually be accepted which shall be found most consistent with the facts, and appear most probable to the average intelligent mind.

The thinking mind of the present day, both lay and clerical, is inclined to the belief, that living forms have been differentiated into species by some process of evolution. As early as 1794 such a process was partially outlined by Erasmus Darwin. This was followed, with more or less of detail, by Lamarck, Pouchet, and the author of "The Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," all of whom encountered the bitter denunciations of theologians.

In 1859 Charles Darwin presented the theory in a definite and systematic form, and then and since has supported it by a vast array of facts. And it is the one, at present, the most extensively accepted. But in the judgment of many the

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Darwinian Theory," so called, rests upon a mass of cumulative evidence, of which no single fact proves anything material in its support; and