THE ORIGIN OF VARIATIONS 59 



because I think the reader's task will be especially difficult, but 

 because we are now coming on very debatable ground where 

 hardly two scientific men think alike, and because this question of 

 the causation of variations lies at the very heart of our subject. 

 Unless we have clear ideas concerning it, we shall have misty ideas 

 concerning cognate subjects. Accordingly, as we form one or 

 other opinion, we shall take one or other of several widely 

 divergent views of heredity, of evolution, of all the problems of 

 life. We shall have to deal with large and complex bodies of 

 evidence, a thing which cannot be done without using correspond- 

 ingly complex processes of thought, though unfortunately attempts 

 to shirk the necessity have been common enough. I think we 

 have materials that are amply sufficient to enable us to come to a 

 definite conclusion. I believe also that the problem is still 

 regarded as debatable only because men, instead of considering 

 the whole mass of evidence and so testing their thinking, have 

 often founded their opinions on isolated bodies of facts. Often, 

 displaying a superstitious and pedantic reverence for facts collected 

 by this or that method of inquiry, they have ignored massive and 

 indisputable evidence, collected in other ways. A simplicity of 

 view has often been achieved in this manner, but at the expense 

 of breadth and depth of view, and, therefore, of correctness, clear- 

 ness, and comprehensiveness of perception. In other words, the 

 phenomena have not been viewed in their complete setting. 



91. Species arose and were adapted to their environments 

 either by miracle or by natural processes. If by miracle, then 

 three methods of creation are conceivable, (i) All species, extinct 

 or persisting, may have been called into being simultaneously, or 

 nearly so, in full possession of the characters which they have ever 

 since possessed. If this, the popular hypothesis, be true, there can 

 have been no evolution, or very little, and, therefore, since untold 

 numbers of species still persist, the environments can have under- 

 gone no important alterations. The entirely conclusive evidence 

 furnished by geology proves, however, that both species and 

 environments have undergone vast though gradual changes. (2) 

 Unchanging species and varieties may have been created, not 

 simultaneously, but successively during a period which extended 

 over many millions of years, and in a way that exactly mimicked 

 evolution, and apparently was designed to delude us into a belief 

 in it. Probably hardly anyone, whether acquainted or not with 

 the facts, now accepts this solution, which logically should impel 

 us to believe that our domesticated breeds of plants and animals 



