offers it in all seriousness to abate our incredulity as to the possibility of the eye having been formed by small accidental favorable variations. Evidently his mind does not measure possibilities by any standard common to men. Did space permit, we might go and fill volumes with exposures of the absurdities of attributing the wonderful contrivances of God's handywork to natural selection, but these specimens must suffice.* But there is one crowning absurdity of the theory which we must not omit, namely, that 12. It Attributes the Elevation of Man and of all Animals to an Agency-the Struggle for Existence-which cannot possibly have Elevated these Higher Races, since it is always a Degrading Agency. Let it not be forgotten that this, together with accidental variation, constitutes the sole power which has advanced the moneron to the man. It is therefore, by the theory, an elevating agency. It has been said that Mr. Darwin does not claim that it elevates species, but only preserves the fittest, or "keeps the species up to its normal vigor." I ask then, What has elevated the moneron to the monkey, and the monkey to the man? What has elevated. all the higher animals from the primeval monera? Mr Darwin's whole book answers, Natural Selection, or the survival of the fittest in the struggle for existence. Then I answer, That is impossible. The struggle for existence is a degrading agency. In no case has any Among the countless evidences of Intelligent Design in nature, may be noticed the mathematical exactness, and unvarying uniformity, of the chemical components of various natural substances, which are combined in arithmetical proportions, and with a uniformity and accuracy of composition which the most skillful chemist cannot parallel: and also the demonstration of a mathematical mind in the Creator, as shown in the laws that govern the existence of plants, animals and men; as well as in the laws of celestial motion, the production of typical forms, the mathematical laws of light, color, sound, etc. The curious reader who wishes to glance at the Mathematics of the Universe is referred to a lecture delivered by Edward White, in New College, London, entitled Number in Nature, printed in No. 17 of the ANTIINFIDEL LIBRARY. individual been made more vigorous by scarcity of food, or of air, or of water. In the struggle for existence the strongest survive; but they survive weaker than if they had not been obliged to live on short rations. The survivors of the Black Hole of Calcutta were the strongest, and so survived the weaker; they survived, and that was all. They were weakened, and sickly, and poisoned, and died prematurely. The survivors of the Irish famine of 1847 were wan and weak, and multitudes, hungerweakened, died from the fevers and dysenteries so fatal to weak constitutions. The wars of the French Revolution and Empire so reduced the stature of the people as to necessitate the reduction of the standard height of soldiers from two to three inches. Mr. Darwin's own illustration of the effects of frost on a bank covered with various plants, shows us that the surviving plants survived frost-bitten and weakened. Such is always the result of the struggle for existence-degradation. It is the crowning absurdity of Darwinism that it ascribes the elevation of all the higher plants and animals to this degrading agency. The struggle for existence does not tend to elevate mankind. The painful records of shipwreck, exploration, hardship, and starvation, abundantly show that in this struggle men become brutalized, and destroy and prey upon each other like wild beasts. According to the evolution notion, every man who passed through such a struggle, should come out elevated in mind, invigorated in body, and spiritualized in soul-a hero, and the progenitor of a race of heroes who would, in a few generations, supersede the sons of those who were well fed and cared for. For thus, and only by this agency, the evolutionists assure us, our European forefathers were elevated from brutes to men. Numerous facts and incontrovertible statements utterly demolish this baseless theory. We read with unspeakable horror the records of the fate of men reduced to the last extremity of want and hunger. If after such awful and disgusting demonstrations of the degrading effect of the struggle for existence, any one shall continue to assert that to its elevating influences for successive generations, man owes his elevation from the brutal state to the dignity of civilization and religion, the common sense of mankind will own the justice of God in giving him over to strong delusion, to believe the lie. But let us hear no more of the survival of the fittest as the progenitor of a race of heroes, since records of the horrors of starvation, familiar to all, have forever buried that monstrous falsehood, and with it the whole theory of evolution of which it is the inspiring demon. V. Mr. Darwin's own Admissions are Fatal to his Theory. 1. His express admissions are destructive. For instance, his whole theory is based on the indefinite variabilty of all species. But when he comes to particular cases he is compelled to acknowledge the existence of an internal barrier to change in certain cases. He himself shows the very small amount of change possible in the guinea-hen, the peacock, and the goose; and he adds the remark, "But the goose seems to have a singularly inflexible organization;" which, as his brother evolutionist, Mr. Mivart, remarks, concedes the whole position. This is not the only place in which such expressions are used.† Sexual selection is his grand manufacturer of all the oddities and ornaments of fowls; but in his 5th Edition of Natural Selection, p. 102, he admits that the wattles of carrier pigeons, the tuft of the turkey-cock, etc., are not traceable to that source. As they are of no conceivable use, they cannot be made by natural selection, which *Animals and Plants under Domestication, pp. 1, 289, 295. 1 Genesis of Species, p. 133. makes only profitable variations. These trifles confound him. Perhaps that was one purpose of their creation. He says: "If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been formed by natural. selection." But he immediately attempts to show that the rattlesnake's rattle is not for the benefit of its prey, but as a threatening for self-defence! Only a Darwinian will believe it. Natural Selection, Mr. Darwin must confess, has been scared to death by the rattlesnake's rattle. Again, in page 207, he shows us that the aphides excrete their honey for the benefit of the ants, and will not excrete it unless they are present; though he will not own that it is for the exclusive benefit of the ants. But he cannot suggest any possible benefit of the act to the aphides. Here again natural selection fails, by his own. confession, to produce an instinct. He admits the fatality of the doctrine "That many structures have been created for the sake of beauty, to delight man or his Creator, or for the sake of mere variety. Such doctrines, if true, would be absolutely fatal to my theory."† But he admits the existence of a love of beauty in birds, yet his theory denies it in the Creator of these birds, who is a most utilitarian sort of a being. "On the other hand I willingly admit that a great number of male animals, as all our most gorgeous birds, butterflies, etc., have been rendered beautiful for beauty's sake; but this has been effected through sexual selection, that is, by the more beautiful males having been continually preferred by the females, and not for the delight of man." He adds, "How the sense of beauty in its simplest form Origin of Species, p. 162. ↑ Origin of Species, p. 160. -that is, the reception of a peculiar kind of pleasure from certain colors, forms, and sounds-was first developed in the mind of man and of the lower animals is a very obscure subject." Very! There is not the slightest use in the metallic lustre of the feathers of the drake, or in the eyes of the peacock's tail. How came they there? How came the birds to be pleased with them? Beauty is fatal to natural selection. Mr. Darwin's admission that the production of beauty for its own sake would be fatal to his theory, has been a great stumbling-block to minds disposed to accept the general principle of evolution. It vulgarizes the Creator into a mere utilitarian factory-owner; and it contradicts the instincts of humanity. Even the child loves the rose, and chases the butterfly; and every woman endeavors to adorn her house. The Duke of Argyle earnestly protests against this utilitarian vulgarism. Speaking of the 430 species of humming-birds, only distinguishable by their varied beautiful plumage, the beauty of which is not of any use in the struggle for existence, he asks: "Now what explanation does the law of natural selection give—I will not say of the origin-but even of the continuance of such specific varieties as these? None whatever. A crest of topaz is no better in the struggle for existence than one of sapphire. A frill ending in spangles of the emerald is no better in the battle of life than a frill end ing in spangles of the ruby. A tail is not affected for the purposes of flight, whether its marginal or its central feathers are decorated with white. It is impossible to bring such varieties into any physical law known to us. It has relation, however, to a Purpose, which stands in close analogy with our knowledge of purpose in the works of men. Mere beauty and mere variety for their own sake are objects which we ourselves seek, when we can |