PRIMORDIAL AND SUCCEEDING FORMS. 289 



thing to maintain " that all animals are descended from one 

 primordial source." It seems to signify very little whether 

 we believe that all living forms have been derived from one 

 ancestral source or from many ; but that apes and men have 

 sprung from a common ancestor and that the " survival 

 of the fittest," is unquestionably the only true doctrine 

 must certainly be accepted. 



While Mr. Darwin and his followers admit that they 

 know nothing concerning the mode of origin of the first 

 living matter that lived upon the earth, or of the phenomena 

 which characterised it, and by which it was distinguished 

 from non-living matter, they nevertheless believe that they 

 have discovered, and are able to teach, very much that was 

 not known before concerning the origin and actions of all 

 succeeding life forms. They would not deny that these 

 last had much in common with the first, nor would they 

 dispute that the phenomena of the primordial living matter, 

 and of that which was derived from it, were of the same 

 order. But they profess to be able to account for the phe- 

 nomena of the derived forms only, and refuse even to dis- 

 cuss how the primordial form came to be and how it ac- 

 quired properties and the power of undergoing the modi- 

 fications which it transmitted to succeeding forms. 



The defenders of Darwin maintain in effect that although 

 neither the origin of the primordial living germ, nor the 

 cause of changes occurring in it can be fully explained by 

 physics, physical causes will fully account for the derivation 

 from it of all succeeding forms, and for the transmission of 

 the actions and infinite modifications which have been met 

 with in succeeding forms, and are manifested by the multi- 

 tudes of things now living. Not only is natural selection 



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