CHAPTER XXXII 

 EVOLUTION 



188. Origin of Living Things. From the earliest times, the 

 great diversity of animal and plant life on the earth has 

 attracted the attention of scientists and philosophers, and 

 given rise to much speculation regarding the origin and sub- 

 sequent development of the various forms. It was once 

 thought that all forms of life were the objects of special crea- 

 tion, and that they appeared upon the earth at one time and 

 in substantially the forms in which we now find them. Strong 

 objections to this theory have arisen since exploration of the 

 earth's crust has discovered the fossil remains of many forms 

 quite unlike those of the present. These remains are not only 

 found in the soil, but occur embedded in the solid rocks, show- 

 ing that they must have existed even before some of the rocks 

 were formed. These extinct animals and plants, though 

 very different from present forms, bear certain well-defined 

 resemblances to them, and the suggestion has often been made 

 that some sort of relationship must connect them. The doc- 

 trine of special creation, however, dominated scientific thought 

 almost universally until the last century, when an Englishman, 

 Charles Darwin, wrote an epoch-making book on the " Origin 

 of Species" which almost completely changed this view. In 

 this book Darwin set forth with much skill a great deal of 

 evidence to prove that the living things now on the earth 

 have descended from these earlier arid less highly specialized 

 organisms through gradual changes during immense periods 

 of time. Since the announcement of the Darwinian Theory, 

 the accumulation of much additional evidence has only 



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