34 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



Darwinian idea of slow modifications, proceeding 

 throughout geological time, and to throw us back on 

 a doctrine of sudden appearance of new forms, occur 

 ring at certain portions of geological time rather than 

 at others, and in the earlier history of animal and 

 vegetable types rather than in their later history, 

 and in early geological times, rather than in those 

 more recent. This doctrine, however, of critical or 

 i spasmodic evolution is essentially different from 

 1 Darwinism, and approaches to that which has been 

 Wiled mediate creation, or creation under natural 



&quot;law. 



With respect to the origin of man himself, which 

 is, no doubt, the most important point to us, these 

 difficulties are enormous. We can trace man only a 

 little way back in geological history, not farther than 

 the Pleistocene period, and the earliest men are still 

 men in all essential points, and separated from other 

 animals, recent and fossil, by a gap as wide as that 

 which exists now. Farther, if from the Pleistocene 

 to the modern period man has continued essentially 

 the same, this, on the principle of gradual develop 

 ment, would remove his first appearance not only far 

 beyond the existence of any remains of man or his 

 works, but beyond the time when any animals nearly 

 approaching to him are known to have existed. This 

 is independent altogether of the farther difficulties 

 which attend the spontaneous origination of the 



|| mental and moral nature of our species. It would 



