CONTROVERST AND PROGRESS. 73 



and instead of there having been as many species of 

 living beings in the beginning as there are now, as 

 Linnaeus believed, there was at first, as Darwin 

 taught, only one primordial form, and from this one 

 form, all that infinitude of forms of vegetable and 

 animal life, which we now behold, is descended. 



The question raised, therefore, is manifestly one 

 that appeals to us .for a solution. I again ask, are 

 all the species of animals and plants, which have ex- 

 isted on the earth since the dawn of life, the results 

 of separate and successive creations by an almighty 

 Power, as has so long been believed, or are they 

 rather the product of Evolution, acting through long 

 ages and in accordance with certain fixed natural 

 laws and processes? 



Until the celebrated controversy, already men- 

 tioned, between Cuvier and Geoffrey, there were, as 

 we have seen, comparatively few who were not firm 

 believers in the doctrine of special creations, at least 

 of all the higher forms of life. Subsequent to this 

 event, the number, especially among naturalists, 

 of those who favored the development hypothesis 

 began gradually to increase. After the publication of 

 Darwin's famous " Origin of Species," the advocates 

 of Evolution rallied their forces in a remarkable man- 

 ner, and before many years had elapsed a large 

 majority of the working naturalists of the world 

 were professed evolutionists. 



Evolutionists and Anti- Evolutionists. 



Of course there were many, even among the 

 ablest scientists of the age, who still withheld their 



