150 " SPECIAL CREATION" 



and not mono phyletic. Such is the view 

 which has been enunciated by Father Wasmann, 

 S.J., whose authority on a point of this kind is 

 paramount. It has also been upheld by Professor 

 Bateson, a man widely separated from the Jesuit 

 in all but attachment to science. Professor 

 Bateson summed up his belief in the text which 

 he placed on the title-page of his first great work 

 on Variation : the text which proclaims that 

 there is a flesh of men, another of beasts, another 

 of birds, another of fishes. 



Darwin remained to the end of his life unde- 

 cided between the two views, for he allowed his 

 original statement as to life having been breathed 

 into one or more forms by the Creator, to pass 

 from edition to edition of the Origin of Species. 

 If the polyphyletic theory be adopted, it must 

 be said that the position of the materialist is made 

 far more difficult than it is at present. Let us 

 see what it means. On the materialistic hypo- 

 thesis, and the same may be said of the pantheistic 

 or any other hypothesis not theistic in nature, a 

 certain cell came by chance to acquire the 

 attributes of life. From this descended plants 

 and animals of all kinds in divergent series till 

 the edifice was crowned by man. I have else- 

 where endeavoured to point out all that is in- 

 volved in this assumption, which, it must be 

 confessed, is a very large mouthful to swallow. 



Let us now consider what the polyphyletic 

 hypothesis involves. According to this view one 

 cell accidentally developed the attributes of 

 vegetable life ; a further accident leads another 



