NO PROOF OF COMMON DESCENT. 13 



and homologies of structure do not entrap my judg- 

 ment at least, but are to me manifestations of the 

 unity of the Creator's plan. 



Our knowledge of the existence of the material 

 world, let me add, is not more certain than our 

 knowledge of the existence of God the Creator. 

 While our sensations lead the mind by intuition to 

 believe in the existence of matter ; our mental per- 

 ceptions as surely lead us. by intuition to believe in 

 the existence of God. 



But to return : In the prevailing order of this 

 world, everything we see works together in con- 

 formity. It is, therefore, perfectly explanatory to 

 common sense, and in no way contradicted by 

 science, that everything was planned and created by 

 the same Divine mind and power. Admitting fully 

 that this is no scientific explanation, I maintain that 

 it is equally no scientific explanation gratuitously to 

 assume the dogma, that peculiarities of conformation 

 in animals depend on inheritance from a progenitor 

 which had, by chance, the part of the body possess- 

 ing the peculiarity of conformation congenitally 

 modified in structure so as to be different from that 

 which was proper to its earlier progenitors. 



Rudimentary organs, according to the doctrine 

 of Evolution, are ' instruments without use ' * parts 

 without anything to do ' and which present them- 

 selves merely because they have been inherited 

 from a progenitor in which they existed fully 



