24 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



the power and guidance of an external will. Such is 

 the production of varieties of animals and plants by 

 selection and other means, and such would be creation 

 if carried out by a Supreme Being using His own 

 materials and laws. This, be it observed, is the only 

 sense in which there can be such a thing as natural 

 selection. Nature is either a purely imaginary being, 

 a mere figure of speech, or another name for a creative 

 will. (3) The supposed development of new kinds 

 or species of animals and plants from others by descent, 

 with modification a process as yet unknown except 

 hypothetically and inferentially, and which is what 

 the doctrine of evolution is contrived to establish, in 

 so far as specific types are concerned, though it is 

 well known in the case of mere varieties. (4) The 



(supposed evolution of living organisms from dead 

 matter, also a process unknown to science a creative 

 fact, which must have occurred at some time, but of 

 the nature and secondary causes of which we know 

 nothing. We may be certain, however, that if it was 

 in any sense of the nature of a development, this 

 must have been different from anything known to us 

 as occurring at present. 



All these entirely distinct kinds of change are 

 mixed up by evolutionists in treating of organic evo 

 lution ; and they freely extend the same term to things 

 so different as the physical changes by which the 

 earth assumed its present form, the improvement of 

 arts and social institutions, the growth of nations by 



