Darwinism and Deity. 33 



steadily, the southern extremity rising at the rate of 

 two feet ; North Cape at the rate of five feet per century. 

 Climates are changing. In the last tour centuries there 

 has been a constant increase in the severity of the cli- 

 mate in all the region about the upper part of Baffin's 

 Bay. Deserted habitations of Esquimaux are found in 

 tracts where there are no longer inhabitants. At the 

 same time, the glaciers of Greenland have very largely 

 increased. Some of the glaciers of Switzerland are 

 steadily growing, others diminishing, others alternating. 

 Coral reefs are still forming, volcanoes are still in erup- 

 tion, and volcanic islands still at times thrust them- 

 selves above the surface of the sea. These operations 

 are precisely the same indicated by geology. It is said 

 that give time enough, allow a duration in which a mill- 

 ion years will count as a fleeting moment, these opera- 

 tions would produce all the changes that the earth's sur- 

 face is said to have undergone. 



Now, if the world has always gone on as it is now 

 going on, the presumption arises, and this presumption 

 accords with what we know of the phenomena of the 

 universe, that there has always been a certain sequence 

 of events ; that every fact of nature is related to and 

 dependent on other facts, and has grown out of facts 

 which preceded it. Hence, it is said that every new 

 form of life, every new animal and plant, has been 

 evolved or developed from already existing species. 

 Darwin claims that this progressive development is de- 

 termined and regulated by a law of nature, which he has 

 eliminated, and which he calls the law of Selection. 



A great many marked varieties of domesticated ani- 

 mals and plants have been produced by the care of man. 



