striving for something better, while others with similar surroundings are contented as God made them. In the case of some, it would seem their Maker did not know their wants and capacities, and so placed them in unfavorable surroundings. All this is the merest figment of the imagination of men wise in their own conceit. What possible proof is there that any living animal, except man, is not contented with its natural state, or that it is striving for some higher state than that in which God has placed it? All living creatures, including the lower races of men, are content as God created them and assigned them their place in nature, and there is not the least evidence of their struggling for a higher and better state.

Another assumption of the evolutionists is, that different species are evolved, not by environment only, but by "natural selection" and the “survival of the fittest." It is also assumed, without proof, that there is a natural tendency to variation. There is a capacity to vary to a limited extent; but the tendency is to retrograde as well as to advance, to rise and also to fall, but no tendency, as there is no capacity, to pass from one species to another. No one maintains that any such tendency is proved. Von Hartmann, a leading German philosopher, and many others, totally deny any such tendency.

The philosophy of "natural selection" is, that organic existence-all living creatures-must corre

spond, or be co-ordinate, with environment or surroundings; and the more perfect this correspondence, or co-ordination, the more favorable are the conditions of existence. The necessities of animal life arise from unfavorable changes in environment— changes of climate, food, natural multiplication, disease and other such causes. An unfavorable change impairs or destroys organic existence. Strong organism resists and survives these changes better than weak. Then there arises a struggle between the weak and the strong for the most favorable conditions of existence, in which the weak perish. The stronger, surviving and perpetuating its organic form, tends to the improvement of the type. Another principle is, that as environment changes, organism changes to correspond, and thus promotes welfare. Mivart, an evolutionist, pronounces “natural selection" "a puerile hypothesis."

The theory is, that nature selects and preserves useful variations-only the useful-and that all creatures advance towards perfection; that the imperfect is gradually improved, and existence made easier and pleasanter. In the human constitution, the tendency should be to the modification or removal of all that causes pain or disease. Is this sustained by facts? Take a single illustration, the birth of children. This wonderful provision of Providence for perpetuating the species is now attended with danger, and requires for the mother care and skilled

assistance. But how different is it in the animal! It is, in animals, an easy process, requiring no external help. If man was primitively a brute, the human birth was simple, comparatively painless and without danger; but it has developed into the present complex, painful and dangerous process!

The dragon-fly, tadpole and other organisms develop, in water, organs for life in the air which would cause them to perish if they did not make their way to the upper atmosphere. What connection has this with environment? In the water they know nothing of what is outside of it, and to suppose they are struggling for and evolving an organism adapted to a world of whose existence they are unconscious, is a fancy a school-girl might indulge in.

To all these mere hypotheses it may be replied that, as a matter of fact, the "fittest" do not survive as a general rule. Sometimes the "fittest " are the most delicate and most difficult to preserve with all that human care can do. The fittest survive only when controlled by human agencies. It is in this way (by human agency) and this alone, that improvement in animals is ever effected, as in the case of domestic animals, which are improved by careful breeding and attention to their surroundings. Agassiz said: "Our domesticated animals, with all their breeds and varieties, have never been traced to anything but their own species; nor have artificial varieties ever failed to revert to the wild stock when left to themselves."

In all organic life there are reversions as well as advances. The beginning of species is perfect; deterioration follows, as is proved by the Silurian fossils. Prof. Dana says that organisms never begin at their lowest point, but high up, and then deteriorate; and this he lays down as a rule to which there is no exception. The first man was made perfect, and no science can offer an iota of proof to the contrary, and analogy makes it probable, because in living organisms there is deterioration rather than advancement. This does not conflict with the fact of progress in creation, for the lowest organisms were created first and then the higher, and that is progress; but between each there is a chasm. Each order was created perfect, but instead of advancing, each particular order rather evinces degeneracy.

It is said by some, that evolution is not the transmutation of one species into another, but the derivation of one from another; or, that all organic forms are derived from some preceding organism. But whether this is a material distinction or not, it does not alter the nature of the evidence required. Practically, transmutation and derivation amount to the same thing, and the proofs are the same.

A physiological argument against this theory is derived from some of the peculiar differences found to exist between the white man and the negro. What process of evolution, or natural selection, or co

ordination of organism to environment, could change the solid cartilage of the negro's nose into the split nose of the white man? What process of evolution could change the prostate gland of the negro, or any imaginary brutal human ancestor, into that of the white man? The split in the nose is not a needful thing, and has no known use or purpose; and the same may be said of the difference in the prostate gland and the absence of the nasal spine in the negro. These organs in the negro, in their present form, answer all purposes, and their different forms in the white man give him no advantage. The negro knows nothing of these differences and can feel no desire for a change; and so there could be no seeking, or striving, after improvement or change in these respects. These differences are almost unknown. It is doubtful if half a dozen men, including anatomists and scientists, can be found in the city of London, or New York, who are aware of them. They are totally unaccountable on any principle of evolution. They are, too, just as unaccountable on the unity theory of degradation. No natural causes can be conceived of which could have changed the nose and prostate gland of Noah's descendants, to say nothing of other similar differences, into their present structure in the negro. This argument is conclusive against both evolution. and monogeny. One fact inconsistent with or contrary to a hypothesis overthrows it.