, 2 88 ANCESTRAL ORIGIN. 



links in one sequence."* Now evolution does declare that 

 every living thing has sprung from one, or at most a very few 

 primordial lumps of living matter. It is very easy to talk 

 of what others say as being " travesties " of Mr. Darwin's 

 conclusions, but it would be far more to the point if 

 evolutionists would answer in few words the objections that 

 are raised to the doctrine if they would teach, instead of 

 dictating and denouncing. If it is desired that five or ten 

 ancestral sources of animated nature should be admitted, 

 evolutionists should say so plainly, and at the same time 

 explain why they object to admit fifty, or five hundred, or 

 five thousand. 



Sir John Lubbock suggests that " it may be worth while 

 to consider the stages through which some group, say, for 

 instance, that of insects, have probably come to be what 

 they are, assuming them to have been developed under 

 natural laws from simpler organisms," and I am sure that 

 every one will agree with him, and many would feel deeply 

 indebted to any naturalist who would illustrate Mr. Dar- 

 win's views in their application to any one small group of 

 creatures, say, two or three genera of any class in nature. 

 But Sir John Lubbock confesses that " the question (as 

 regards insects) is one of great difficulty," and the true line 

 of their development "would not at present be agreed upon 

 by all naturalists." We, therefore, gain nothing yet, and 

 are practically referred by the evolutionists of the day to 

 the evolutionists 'of the future, and their work in the times 

 about to be. We are, however, assured at this present 

 time that without doubt natural selection, or the survival 

 of the fittest, is a vera causa, but that it is quite another 

 * " Nature," June 26th, 1873, p. 167. 



