CREATION BY LAW. 295 



existed in a solid state 500,000,000 of years, and 

 that therefore time would not suffice for the slow pro- 

 cess of development of all living organisms it is 

 hardly necessary to reply, as it cannot be seriously 

 contended, even if this calculation has claims to ap- 

 proximate accuracy, that the process of change and 

 development may not have been sufficiently rapid to 

 have occurred within that period. His objection to 

 the Classification argument is, however, more plau- 

 sible. The uncertainty of opinion among Naturalists 

 as to which are species and which varieties, is one of 

 Mr. Darwin's very strong arguments that these two 

 names cannot belong to things quite distinct in nature 

 and origin. The Reviewer says that this argument is of 

 no weight, because the works of man present exactly 

 the same phenomena; and he instances patent inven- 

 tions, and the excessive difficulty of determining whether 

 they are new or old. I accept the analogy though it 

 is a very imperfect one, and maintain that such as it 

 is, it is all in favour of Mr. Darwin's views. For 

 are not all inventions of the same kind directly affili- 

 ated to a common ancestor? Are not improved Steam 

 Engines or Clocks the lineal descendants of some ex- 

 isting Steam Engine or Clock ? Is there ever a new 

 Creation in Art or Science any more than in Nature ? 

 Did ever patentee absolutely originate any complete 

 and entire invention, no portion of which was derived 

 from anything that had been made or described be- 

 fore ? It is therefore clear that the difficulty of dis- 

 tinguishing the various classes of inventions which 



