CREATION BY EVOLUTION 



The other view is that offered by the theory of evolution — 

 that all hving things now in existence have arisen by natural 

 descent, with modifications, from ancestors that might be 

 traced back, step by step, to unknown simple forms of life. 



By its very nature, the hypothesis or doctrine of special 

 creation was helpless to explain the facts shown by the dis- 

 tribution of animals and plants on the earth. On the other 

 hand, if the new theory failed to offer a satisfactory explana- 

 tion of these facts it would thereby be shown to be inade- 

 quate and improbable. 



Geographic Distribution in the Light of the Evolutionary 



Hypothesis 



If the evolutionary hypothesis is true, then the present 

 arrangement of living things on the surface of the earth, 

 strange and inexplicable as some of its features may seem to 

 be, must have been the necessary outcome of the whole vast 

 series of changes — geographical, climatic, and biological — 

 through which the earth has passed during unimaginably 

 long periods of geological time. And it may be said, in 

 anticipation, that the present distribution of animals is, in a 

 broad and general sense, explained by what we know of 

 the earth's history as it is revealed by geology and palaeon- 

 tology. Where explanation is lacking it is invariably due to 

 our ignorance of parts of that history, and we may reason- 

 ably expect that the solution of any problem concerning a 

 particular animal or group of animals will be found when 

 all of that history shall have been deciphered. A great 

 many new facts have been discovered since Darwin wrote, 

 and these, as a whole, are strongly confirmatory of the 

 hypothesis of evolution. 



The mode of procedure followed in solving such a prob- 

 lem may be best illustrated by a single concrete example, 



[82] 



