1 1 6 Permanence and Evolution. 



Even that I hold it premature to affirm or deny. 

 As I said before, it seems easier to imagine that 

 a horse was evolved out of an ass, than that 

 it was produced in any other way, specially if 

 we disguise the real incomprehensibility by 

 multiplying imaginary intermediate links ; but 

 it does not follow that it is really easier in 

 nature. 



It would seem to the eye of a layman (and 

 with regard to the origin of life we are all lay- 

 men) easier to make one salt out of another 

 salt closely resembling it, than out of an acid 

 and a base which do not resemble it at all. 

 Yet we know that the one is possible, and the 

 other supremely impossible. So to a savage 

 it would no doubt seem easier to turn, say, 

 a watch on the Swiss horizontal principle into 

 an English chronometer, than to make the last 

 anew out of bare metals ; yet in point of fact 

 the Swiss watch, as such, could not be con- 

 verted, but would have to be entirely re- 



