96 RAMBLES AND REVERIES. 



moreover, could swim and burrow in the sand ; it 

 was protected with an almost impregnable case, 

 while its head was covered with hard shields, and 

 it could roll itself up in a stone-like ball when 

 pursued by its foes. How is it that such a highly 

 organised animal, with an eye as perfect as that of 

 the modern insect, consisting of hundreds of lenses, 

 with a structure so eminently adapted to its modes 

 of life, should appear at its best at the very dawn 

 of its existence in the Cambrian age, and go on 

 gradually deteriorating until it died out in the 

 Carboniferous age ? Is this the survival of the 

 fittest ? The difficulty has, of course, been grappled 

 with by Darwinians, but it has not been utterly 

 explained away." 



" Then you are not an evolutionist," said my 

 friend. 



" I can only answer that question by saying Yes 

 and No. There is no word in the English vocabulary 

 so abused as the word evolution. It is used for 

 education, for growth, for the processes of nature's 

 laws, and for the transmutations by which the 

 original nebula out of which our globe is said to 

 have been produced has resulted in the highest 

 animal forms, including even man. It implies 

 creation by formative laws, under the superin- 

 tendency of a Deity, and it is put in the place of 

 God by those who are atheistically inclined. You 

 see, then, how difficult it is for me to say whether 

 1 am an evolutionist or not. Then, you must not 

 forget that every man who declares himself an 

 anti-evolutionist is at once laughed at as an 



