ANNUAL MEETING. 117 



crowded — and those varieties wliich are strongest will alone survive. Lastly, 

 the law of inheritance fixes tiien some stron<; points that enabled their 

 possessors to win in the "struggle for existence." Wo sec then why "survival 

 of tlie fittest" ar.d "natural selection" are terms for descent, as explained 

 by Darwin. Nature is daily showing to the horticulturist the truth of u 1 

 tiiese facts, as explained so graphically by the great philosopher. 



The evolution of this doctrine is most interesting. Descartes in his philos- 

 ophy gave the germ, the mere lichen, which, witli Lamarck, developed into a 

 blootning shrub, though unattractive. While Mathew, the floriculturist, 

 brought out the Darwinian bloom, which failed, however, to attract the popu- 

 lar gaze. Darwin and Wallace left the theory a symmetrical tree, whose 

 bloom and fragrance reached to all civilized n-ations. Now every scienti«t is 

 pruning, grafting, mulching, etc., that this goodly growth may soon advance 

 to perfection. 



The arguments that have won such numerous adherents to this theory are: 

 Gradation in the present life of the world, which, though presenting many 

 breaks, is startling in its suggestive lessons; fossil forms which fill many of 

 the breaks of our present life, and show that harmony in development and 

 gradation has ever been existent from the dawn of the creation of life; 

 embi'yolojry, showing that development of the individual, marks out the 

 development of past ages; aboitive organs, which are easily ex|)lained on the 

 ground that tiiey were once useful appendages, but have been whittled away 

 by nature as they became useless from changed habits of their possessor; 

 monstrosities, which are generally or often the growth of these abortive organs 

 referred to above, by added nutrition, so that they appear as their representa- 

 tives in the past appeared ; geology, which shows the life of each continent in 

 any geological age to be modeled after the life of the same continent in the 

 preceding geological age; and modifications, as seen to-day, which follow upon 

 a changed condition of the plant or animal which are so striking, that were 

 the history of tlie cases obscure, these modifications would be considered 

 abundantly sufficient to separate the forms, as distinct species, or oven more 

 distant groups. Tliese variated differences, even in nature, are so striking 

 that the students of birds and mammals have reduced the species of the older 

 naturalists from one-third to one-half. The same species in Kansas and 

 Michigan are wide apart in appearance. Naturalists have learned that varie- 

 ties, species, and even the wider groups, as genera and orders, have only 

 quantitative differences. 



Lastly, educated Christian men are no longer halting tremulously before 

 this theory of creation. It demands a God. It is not antagonistic to theology. 

 Our first commentators on the scriptures are accepting it. Our most devout 

 Christian scientists, like Dana and Gray, accept evolution in science and the 

 Bible in ethics. Our great divines, like McCosh and Beecher, recognize the 

 truth in evolution and hasten to turn it to use as a great factor in moral 

 progress. 



The Bible proclaims God to be the great creator of all. Evolution shows 

 in part the methods of creation, on which point scripture is silent. Both 

 evolution and the l.iible assert that the fittest survive, and urge with strongest 

 emphasis towards a life of purity and excellence. 



