Darwinism and Deity. 39 



plain all the phenomena of that class. It can not be 

 accepted as a law of nature, if it be inconsistent with a 

 single fact of nature. And the law of selection con- 

 fessedly does not explain all the phenomena of the de- 

 velopment of species. For Darwin says, there are in 

 man, and other animals, parts which do not appear to 

 be of any present use, or to have ever been of use in 

 any previous form of life. And such parts can not be 

 accounted for bv the law of selection. 



Further, even so far as the law of selection is con- 

 sistent with known facts, it can not now be taken as ab- 

 solutely true, but only as provisionally true. For a 

 larger acquaintance with the facts of nature may show it 

 to be incorrect, and require it to be modified and aban- 

 doned. The Ptolemaic theory of the universe was a 

 good scientific theory in its day, for it was consistent 

 with all the facts then known of the heavenly bodies. 

 But a larger acquaintance with the movements of those 

 bodies required that theory to be dropped and sup- 

 planted by the Copernican theory. 



Finally, although several species have disappeared 

 within the last two thousand years, it is not known 

 that a single new species has appeared since the last 

 fossil era. It must therefore take, so far as we know, 

 thousands of years, to produce any, even the smallest, 

 permanent change in the structure of either animal or 

 vegetable life. But though we thus know that a very 

 long period is necessary, we do not know how much 

 would be sufficient. We have not yet, therefore, 

 attained at anything like a unit of measurement of time 

 required for the workings of Darwin's law. 



But late discoveries have shown that the people who 



