104 DISCRIMINATIONS CHAP. 



antithetical conclusions which are at 

 variance with at least all contemporary 

 facts in the living world, and which, as 

 regards the past, rest mainly on our 

 impossibilities of conception in a matter 

 on which we are profoundly ignorant. 

 Species, if not absolutely immutable, 

 have now undoubtedly, and always have 

 had, a very high degree of stability and 

 endurance. If mutations have occurred, 

 it must have been under some conditions, 

 and under some law, of which we have 

 no example and can form no conception. 

 It is at this point that the theory of 

 organic evolution, when understood in 

 what may be called the party sense, 

 breaks down as an easy explanation 

 of the facts. It may be true that the 

 idea of separate creations continually 

 repeated is an idea which represents an 

 escape from thought, rather than an 

 exercise of reasonable speculation on 



