lx PROOFS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AUTHORITIES, ETC. 



against the hypothesis of natural creation. " It cannot," he says, 

 " explain the wonderful adaptation of animals and plants to their con- 

 dition and to each other." That demands " infinite wisdom and 

 power." Yes ; but infinite wisdom and power, acting in an estab- 

 lished divine order, may do just as much as acting in an arbitrary 

 way. These adaptations are, in reality, best explainable on the 

 development hypothesis, for then we see the conditions acting as 

 part causes, so that the effect becomes simple ; always, nevertheless, 

 to be held as brought about by divine means. 



By this hypothesis we should expect, says Dr. Hitchcock, at least 

 a few examples of the formation of new organs in animals, in the 

 efforts of nature to advance towards a more perfect state. We have 

 specimens of animals from the Egyptian sepulchres, three thousand 

 years old ; but in no organ are they different from the present. All 

 this has been elsewhere fully replied to. 



Then, " Geology contradicts this hypothesis." No evidence of the 

 development of new organs is seen in fossils. " New species appear, 

 but they differ as decidedly from the previous ones as species now 

 do." How can this hypothesis explain the sudden changes of species 

 from one formation to another, " when its essential principle is, that 

 the progress of development is uniform ?" " Nothing can explain 

 them surely but special creative interposition." All this is miserably 

 weak, if not disingenuous. The reader of our Proofs and Illustra- 

 tions, No. 8, will see very good authority for a progress, and that a 

 gradual one, of species, in all the chief lines of animal being. The 

 gaps are known by the merest tyros in geology to be explained by 

 pauses of local formation. And we must respectfully hint that Dr. 

 Hitchcock's vague "surely" in the last of the above sentences quoted 

 from him, can only be accepted as the impression or whim of his 

 own mind, till he can bring some proofs for its support. 



Dr. Hitchcock thinks that the great reproductive power of the 

 lowest animals affords a presumption that they cannot also be pro- 

 ducible without parentage, for " this latter mode would supersede 

 the necessity of the former." Dr. Hitchcock forgets that the prin- 

 cipal question is as to the way the animated forms first acquired 

 life. He, like every geologist, must admit that life had a beginning. 

 The mode of reproduction by parents did not effect that beginning. 

 All arguments about its constancy are therefore of no account in the 

 case. 



He considers as a strong argument against the doctrine of a crea- 

 tion by law, that it infers materialistic views of mind, and puts an 

 end to moral responsibility. " If this system of materialism is true, 

 we ought," he admits, " to embrace it, without any fear of ultimate 

 bad effects." But "a true philosopher will demand very strong 

 evidence before he admits any hypothesis that leads a logical mind 

 to such conclusions." We believe it would have been best for the 

 learned lecturer to admit at once, that while he continues to draw 

 such inferences from the idea of the Creator producing mind in the 

 manner of all the rest of creation, namely, by law, there is no 



