266 



THE MUSEUM. 



'tic animals. We can see a very good 

 reason for this. They have been par- 

 ticularly designed for man's use and 

 benefit; and they have accordingly 

 been endowed with susceptibilities to 

 reciprocate man's treatment as a ra- 

 tional being, fitting them in a good de- 

 gree to go with him into every climate, 

 and claim his protection for the ser- 

 vice they render him. By his reason, 

 and it is a shame to say by his avarice, 

 often unguided by reason, he seeks to 

 make the most of them. And yet man 

 has never created a single species. 

 Domestication cannot be appealed to 

 as having produced a single species, 

 nothing higher than varieties, which 

 soon return to the original types when 

 left to themselves. We do, however, 

 regard it as a proof of the very highest 

 kind in support of the origin of species 

 by an intelligent Being working in na- 

 ture and by inexplainable laws as man 

 works with his domestic animals to 

 produce his varieties; but working un- 

 trameled with infinite resources of 

 knowledge and power at command, 

 and so able to overstep varieties and 

 carry the work into specific difference, 

 and even much further if we see fit to 

 claim it. Darwin was right in claim- 

 ing varieties to be only incipient spec- 

 ies, and the distinction to be only one 

 of degree. But the transformation of 

 variety into species is one which baf- 

 fles our skill to effect, eludes our ca- 

 pacities to understand and thwarts our 

 evidence conclusively to prove. We 

 have no experience of our species be- 

 ing transmitted into another and we 

 do not see it taking place before our 

 eyes. 



In the mineral kingdom there are 

 nearly seventy fixed mineral species; 

 and these have bid defiance to our 



power to change one into the other. 

 It would seem the gulf is just as im- 

 passible between the vertebrate and 

 invertebrate. At no stage of its devel- 

 opment is the radiate animal like a 

 mollusc; and so of all the five great 

 types that constitute the whole animal 

 world as advocated by Agassiz. Dana 

 assures us since man appeared geology 

 does not disclose a single new species 

 of plant or animal. That would per- 

 haps be very hard to prove. It cer- 

 tainly would not be derogatory to 

 Scripture to think several may have 

 appeared. Only negative proof can 

 be advanced which may or may not be 

 true. So far as the completion of 

 creation is concerned it was a finished 

 work with man s creation. Revelation 

 was given only for his benefit. The 

 fact of his being the object of it proves 

 him to be the finished work, in the 

 sense of being most exalted, with a 

 moral nature that becoming debased 

 made a revelation necessary, with do- 

 minion over all created things, either 

 completed or contemplated, for with 

 the Creator contemplation is actual 

 execution of the plan. But no higher 

 creation, so far as our earth is con- 

 cerned, was ever to enter into the ac- 

 count, either in the contemplation or 

 execution of the plan. Never will any 

 creature henceforth appear on earth to 

 be honored with a divine revelation or 

 so unfortunate as to need one. 



Man then stands as one species 

 which will never so change as to pass 

 beyond the pale of revelation; one to 

 which we can point with certainty as 

 never having originated from, or des- 

 tined to pass into any other. It seems 

 to be conclusively proved that since 

 the human race has existed, and even 

 during historical times of a rather re- 



