34 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



theory, ought to be discoverable, the apparent immutability of species, 

 the infertility of hybrids. Whether it was worth while at this time 

 of day to write a somewhat lengthy treatise, for the purpose of putting 

 forward arguments so thoroughly known, is a question on which opin- 

 ions may differ. We do not mean that the arguments themselves are 

 not deserving of attention ; but we do mean that they are very acces- 

 sible to the reading public in a great many quarters, and are nowhere, 

 probably, stated with greater force than in the writings of the evolu- 

 tionists themselves. Such as it is, however, the scientific argumentation 

 of this volume is interwoven throughout with argumentation of a purely 

 theological character. The author would, possibly, call the latter 

 philosophical ; but, with every desire to be just, we think that term 

 would be misapplied. Take the following as an example of the kind 

 of thing we refer to : " Why depict the infinite God as a quiescent 

 and retired spectator of the operation of certain laws he has imposed 

 upon organized matter, when there are discoverable so many manifest 

 reasons for the special creation of such a being as man ? " Here we 

 have Mr. Curtis talking in his usual off-hand way of the Divine Being 

 as being swayed by "reasons," and of these reasons as being discover- 

 able by ordinary human understanding. Have all the lessons of the 

 Book of Job, to say nothing of the " Critique of Pure Reason," been 

 lost upon this latest foe of evolution ? It would seem so. Again we 

 are told, in the most magisterial manner, that " in the economy of 

 Nature, which is but another name for the economy of the Omnipotent 

 Creator, there is no waste of power, as there is no abstention from the 

 exercise of power, when its exertions are needed to accomplish an 

 end." Can any one attach a rational meaning to the word " waste " 

 as applied to that the supply of which is infinite ? If we imagine, for 

 one moment, the Creator being arraigned for something that, to finite 

 intelligence, looked like waste, might not his reply be that he had 

 infinite reserves of power which were not being put to any use at all ? 

 And if the finite intelligence were to rejoin that this was waste on a 

 yet larger scale, what should we have but one more illustration of how 

 hopeless it is for the finite mind to grapple with the infinite and abso- 

 lute ? Working, however, upon his double principle that the Deity 

 never wastes power, yet is always willing to exert the full amount 

 needed for the accomplishment of his purposes, our author is led 

 to disbelieve entirely what the evolutionists assert in regard to the 

 derivation of the human species from lower types of life. As he in- 

 terprets the facts, the Deity economized power by making man on the 

 same general plan as the rest of the mammalians, instead of drawing 

 entirely new plans for him ; and at the same time expended power in 

 creating those specific differences which constitute him Man. A deli- 

 cate question might here arise as to whether the various " rudiments " 

 found in the human frame were left there through a prudent economy 

 of power, or placed there by a wise exertion of power. We should 



