4'22 INDEPENDENT CREATION. CHAP. xxr. 



cause, therefore, which has, as yet, been even conjecturally 

 brought forward, to explain how, in the ordinary course of 

 nature, a new specific form may be generated is, as Lamarck 

 declared, ' variation,' and this has been rendered a far more 

 probable hypothesis by the way in which Natural Selection is 

 shown to give intensity and permanency to certain varieties. 



Independent Creation. 



When I formerly advocated the doctrine that species were 

 primordial creations, and not derivative, I endeavoured to 

 explain the manner of their geographical distribution, and 

 the affinity of living forms to the fossil types nearest akin 

 to them in the tertiary strata of the same part of the globe, 

 by supposing that the creative power, which originally adapts 

 certain types to aquatic and others to terrestrial conditions, 

 has, at successive geological epochs introduced new forms 

 best suited to each area and climate, so as to fill the places of 

 those which may have died out. 



In that case, although the new species would differ from 

 the old (for these would not be revived, having been already 

 proved by the fact of their extinction, to be incapable of 

 holding their ground), still, they would resemble their pre 

 decessors generically. For, as Mr. Darwin states in regard 

 to new races, those of a dominant type inherit the advantages 

 which made their parent species flourish in the same country, 

 and they likewise partake in those general advantages which 

 made the genus to which the parent species belonged, a large 

 genus in its own country. 



We might, therefore, by parity of reasoning, have antici 

 pated that the creative power, adapting the new types to the 

 new combination of organic and inorganic conditions of a 

 given region, such as its soil, climate, and inhabitants, would 

 introduce new modifications of the old types, marsupials, 



