EVOLUTION THE RESULT OF CHEMICAL FORCES. 



second natures, involuntary actions, and instincts. It is undoubt- 

 edly true tliat many of the effects of such acts and habits, and 

 often the instincts themselves, are transmitted to succeeding 

 generations. The modifications in any individual caused by the 

 habitual exercise of any functions of body or mind will most 

 likely be inherited by the descendents of that individual. This 

 is without question a vera causa in the origination of variations 

 in species as set forth by the evolutionists. But it must be re- 

 membered that disuse and atrophy are also hereditary, and that 

 species often retrograde as well as advance. Indeed as far back 

 as observation has extended it would seem that species in the 

 wild state have deteriorated more frequently than they have im- 

 proved. Therefore the principle of evolution through inherit- 

 ance of slight changes does not necessarily mean progress, nor 

 can it exercise any very extended influence on specific characters. 

 It cannot in the nature of the case serve to explain great struct- 

 ural differences where there are no intermediate grades; for the 

 first axiom of Darwinian evolution is " Natura non facit saltum." 

 I am of the opinion that all the labored evidences and arguments 

 in favor of natural selection and the survival of the fittest, prove 

 nothing more than the application of these principles within the 

 narrow limits of varieties and nearly allied species, and that the 

 great advances that have been made from one order to another 

 and from family to family are yet to be accounted for. These 

 great generic steps, always from a lower to a higher standard, are 

 never graded up but always bold and precipitate. The forms 

 that ought to exist in order to show the gradual ascent are never 

 found. The presumption is strong therefore that they never 

 existed. 



Let us for a moment make the attempt to apply the doctrines 

 of modern evolution to the explanation of some one of the great 

 structural transitions from one genus to another. Let us take as 

 an instance the loss of one of the toes in any of the equine series 

 in Prof. Huxley's famous crucial example of the development of 

 the one-toed horse from the ancient Eohippus. This was a tapir- 

 like animal about as large as a fox, with four hoof-toes to the 

 fore feet and three to the hind feet. Its remains have been 



