52 THE CASE AGAINST EVOLUTION 



human mind or soul from the evolutionary accoimt of origins, 

 but, if homology is, in any sense, a sound argument for com- 

 mon descent, the evolutionary origin of the human body is 

 a foregone conclusion, and none of the anatomical "differences 

 in degree" will avail to spare us the humiliation of sharing with 

 the ape a common family-tree. It remains for us, then, to 

 reexamine the argument critically for the purpose of deter- 

 mining as precisely as possible its adequacy as a genuine 

 demonstration. 



To begin with, it must be frankly acknowledged that here 

 the theory of transformism is, to all appearances, upon very 

 strong ground. Its first strategic advantage over the theory 

 of immutability consists in the fact that, unlike the latter, 

 its attitude towards the problem is positive and not negative. 

 When challenged to explain the structural uniformities ob- 

 served in organic Nature, the theory of immutability is mute, 

 because it knows of no second causes or natural agencies ade- 

 quate to account for the facts. It can only account for 

 homology by ascribing the phenomenon exclusively to the 

 unity of the First Cause, and, while this may, of course, be the 

 true and sole explanation, to assume it is tantamount to re- 

 moving the problem altogether from the province of natural 

 science. Hence it is not to be wondered at that scientists 

 prefer the theory of transformism, which by assigning inter- 

 mediate causes between the First Cause and the ultimate 

 effects, vindicates the problem of organic origins for nat- 

 ural science, in assuming the phenomena to be proximately 

 explicable by means of natural agencies. Asked whether he 

 believes that God created the now exclusively arboreal Sloth 

 (Bradypus) in a tree, the most uncompromising defender of 

 fixism will hesitate to reply in the affirmative. Yet, in 

 this case, what is nowadays, at least, an inherited preadapta- 

 tion, dedicates the animal irrevocably to tree-life, and makes 

 its survival upon the ground impossible. 



Analogous preadaptations occur in conjunction with the 

 phenomena of parasitism, symbiosis and commensalism, all of 



