LORD SALISBURY ON EVOLUTION. 571* 



their bodies ; there are tlie Yakutes the " iron men/' as they are 

 called who, in their rigorous climate, sleep in the open air and 

 wake covered with hoar-frost ; there are the Hindus, constitu- 

 tionally adjusted to the tropics in such way that they can sleep 

 in the burning sunshine ; and, again, there are Indian hill-tribes 

 living comfortably in malarious localities which are fatal not 

 only to Europeans but to Hindus. Moreover, while we thus get 

 proof that organisms fit themselves to their environments, we 

 also get proof that there simultaneously result divergences and 

 re- divergences of races and varieties. Men have spread from 

 some original locality into other localities in all directions ; and 

 there have resulted sundry widely unlike families appropriate to 

 their respective habitats, and less unlike breeds diverging within 

 them, such as the Aryan peoples of Europe. This process which 

 the human species shows us is, and always has been, the process 

 with every kind of organism. While we are shown a general 

 cause which has been superposing modifications upon modifica- 

 tions from the beginning, we are also shown how there has arisen 

 a concomitant formation of class within class. The cause we find 

 in operation is a cause of the kind needed to explain the remark- 

 able relations above described. 



Thus we have four great groups of observed facts (or five if 

 we include those concerning rudimentary organs) all suggesting 

 the same history, all converging to the same conclusion : their 

 joint significance being immense in comparison with the signifi- 

 cance of each group taken by itself. And in the adaptation of 

 organisms to their conditions, directly or indirectly brought 

 about, we have a cause which makes these aggregates of phe- 

 nomena intelligible. On these mutually-verifying sets of evi- 

 dences the hypothesis of evolution stands by itself, quite apart 

 from any conclusions respecting its special causes. Hence the 

 meaning of the assertion made above, that even were all theories 

 about the special causes disproved, the doctrine of evolution 

 would remain standing. 



And now, having contemplated the observed facts which indi- 

 rectly support the hypothesis of evolution, let us ask for the ob- 

 served facts which indirectly support the alternative hypothesis. 

 There are none. Neither in the air, nor on the earth, nor in the 

 water do we find anything implying special creation. Nay, in- 

 deed, not only do we see no facts favoring the supposition, but we 

 see a world of facts conflicting with it. From hour to hour inci- 

 dents showing the uniformity of law and the constant relations 

 of causes and effects generate in us convictions so incongruous 

 with it as to produce instant disbelief of an alleged special crea- 

 tion now occurring. Should any one say that having taken into 

 his room a bowl containing nothing but clear water, he saw a fish 



