Nature was to this man, what to the Thinker and Prophet it for ever is, preternatural."—Carlyle.

"A mighty maze ! but not without a plan.”—Pope.

"Falstaff. I would your grace would take me with you."-King Henry IV., Part 1, Act II. Scene iv.

CHAPTER II.

EVOLUTION.

IT stumbles at starting. Of Evolution as alleged, there are several varieties; and the theory is at fault among them. A choice must be made, and the choice is not easy. Natural Selection, if it were not merely the nominal designation of an unreal entity, might here render important service; but as it is, is useless. And to spontaneous selection the choice is encumbered with difficulties. Of these difficulties it is not the least that, by the theory, spontaneous selection is impossible: spontaneity is non-existent, save in imagination. Since this little difficulty is not (by the theory) to be surmounted, it must be evaded; and when it has been evaded the labour of selection begins.

The varieties from which the selection must be made may be classed in three main divisions; or, in other words, notwithstanding the protests of those Darwinians who deny the existence

of species, they may all be referred to three species: the theistic, the atheistic, and the agnostic.

Evolutionists of the first class admit, while those of the second deny, the existence of a Divine Creator. By those of the third class, that existence, while not by any means admitted, is yet not explicitly denied. It is simply ignored. They "have no need of the hypothesis of God." Foremost among the leaders of this latter class are Mr. Spencer and Professors Huxley, Tyndall, and Bain. Less cautious or more candid are Carl Vogt, Ernst Haeckel, and Buchner, as representatives of atheistic development; while the theistic, its antithesis, is vindicated by names of no less note than those of Sir John Herschel, Sir William Thomson, Professors Owen, Dawson, Gray, Dr. Carpenter, and, at least in his earlier writings, Mr. Charles Darwin himself.

The existence of these varieties is a fact at once significant and instructive. Our present concern, however, is not with these, except so far as they serve to illustrate or demonstrate the nature of the base which they have in common. That doctrine of Development which they all affirm: what is it? What are its pretensions? Where are its proofs ?

Let "the Abraham of scientific men" speak

first.

1

"It is interesting," he says, "to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately-constructed forms so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us." "There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one."

The grandeur, however, is questionable. It may be nothing more than a figment of the imagination, a mere matter of taste, or of opinion; but even if it were matter of fact, it is not a matter with which we have any concern. Our enquiry as to "this view of life" is not, Can it be made to look grand? but, Can it be shown to be true?

At present, this has not been shown. Even Mr. Darwin himself does not profess to "know," he merely "believes," the truth of the doctrine he propounds. "I believe," these are his words,

1 "Origin of Species.". First Edition (Murray: 1859), chap. xiv. pp. 489, 490.

"that animals have descended from at most only four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or lesser number. Analogy would lead me one step further, namely, to the belief that all animals and plants have descended from some one prototype. But analogy may be a deceitful guide. Nevertheless all living things have much in common, Therefore I should

infer from analogy that probably all the organic beings which have ever lived on this earth have descended from some one primordial form into which life was first breathed."1

But this "belief," which Mr. Darwin thinks probable," this "inference" derived from "analogy," has never been verified. How could it be verified, when its most ardent apostles assure us that it may, after all, "be wrong," and will "certainly" have to "undergo modification?" 2 But even if it had been verified it is not "materialism," it is not "atheism," it is not "agnosticism." It is the very reverse of all these, for it is a manifesto of absolute "theism."

"In my book on the 'Genesis of Species,'' says Professor St. George Mivart, "I had in

1 "Origin of Species." First Edition, chap. xiv. p. 484. 2 Prof. Tyndall, ut sup., p. 7.

"Lessons from Nature." Murray, 1876, p. 429.