132 Evolution of Vegetal Life. 



controlling the organic matter, checked and guided by sur- 

 rounding conditions. We know that these changes occur, 

 as certainly as we can possibly know anything : they are 

 taking place at every instant before our eyes. Whether all 

 changes have been of the same character ; whether all forms 

 of life, above the most simple, have come from pre-existing 

 forms, we cannot now prove, we can probably never prove. 

 The most that we can say is, that the preponderance of ev- 

 idence in this direction is overwhelming ; that the system 

 thus outlined is consistent and reasonable ; and that any 

 other system or theory, which has so far been broached, 

 seems arbitrary, artificial and improbable. W T e cannot say 

 that we can understand it, excepting as a logical process : 

 our minds as developed so far have not capacity for grasp- 

 ing certain ideas, which nevertheless we can express. What- 

 ever theory of creation we may accept, whichever horn of 

 the great dilemma we may adopt, as, for example, that 

 there was a point which had no antecedent, or that there 

 was no such point, we are alike landed in the inconceiv- 

 able : and yet, the inconceivable on the one hand or the oth- 

 er, must be the true. This is not saying that we must not 

 speculate ; it is simply saying that from the constitution of 

 the mind speculation has its limits, which we shall reach, 

 and which will bring us to a halt willy-nilly : we need not 

 fear lest we transcend these limits ; we cannot overstep the 

 boundary until our minds take on new powers. We shall 

 adopt, and properly adopt, that theory which is in closest 

 accord with what our experience shows us to be the facts ; 

 that theory which requires us to make the least draft upon 

 the arbitrary and the cataclysmic. 



Some weeks ago there appeared, among the waifs in one 

 of our daily papers, the following story : " It is said that 

 when Gen. Grant was in Japan, the Japanese Premier, 

 Prince Kung, desiring to compliment the General by telling 

 him that he was born to command, tried it in English with 

 this result : ' Sire, brave General, you vas made to order.' " 

 Apparently, in most quarters to-day, as in the past, the 

 great question is, whether things have been made to order. 

 The question of design has been the vital question, whether 

 Paley has been the spokesman upon the one side or Haeckel 

 the spokesman upon the other. During the contest through 

 which the development hypothesis passed before its general 

 acceptance by the great body of scientific men, this ques- 



