48 Darwinism and Deity. 



is based on the supposition that each step of positive 

 improvement grows out of a struggle with the condi- 

 tions of lite, in which the worthy succeed, and in which 

 each success is only a terrace and coin of vantage for 

 further progress. And further, if a mere senseless 

 shell-fish can struggle up through diversified forms to 

 such a being as man, what glorious visions of greatness 

 yet to be attained does not the fact suggest ! 



The sum of these remarks, then, is this : Darwin 

 does not propose to explain the origin and essence of 

 life. He assumes that simple forms of animal life 

 were originally created with certain powers and capabil- 

 ities. He proposes to explain the manner in which 

 more complex forms have since appeared. He claims 

 that the action and reaction of these powers and capa- 

 bilities, and of the conditions of life on each other, con- 

 stitute a law of nature, which he calls the law of selec- 

 tion, and that all the diversified forms of life which 

 have appeared on earth since the origin of life, have 

 come into existence in accordance with this law. 



This theory, however, can not as yet be accepted as 

 a demonstrated law since there are confessedly phenom- 

 ena which it does not account for. 



Further, so far as it is consistent with actual phenom- 

 ena, it can not be accepted as absolutely true, but only 

 as provisionals true. For if true according to the 

 present state of human knowledge, a larger acquaint- 

 ance with the phenomena of nature may overthrow it, 

 and require some new theory. 



And further, as the development of no new species 

 has ever yet been actually observed, there is no means of 

 determining the duration of time required to produce, 



