74 "Behold the Birds of the Air" 



attained that form ; or that through different and totally 

 independent lines of descent precisely the same terminus 

 has been reached ? One or other it must be, but each 

 answer would appear to involve grave difficulties. If, on 

 the one hand, we say that all the members of the 

 species are descended from one pair of ancestors, there 

 is an end of the favourite Darwinian argument against 

 the hypothesis of special creation, which rests on nothing 

 more firmly than on the assumed impossibility of such 

 descent. If, on the other hand, we adopt the supposi- 

 tion that Woodcocks have been the result of distinct 

 developments, how account for the fact that the results 

 are indistinguishable ? As we have already seen, while, 

 on Darwinian principles, it is circumstances alone which 

 mould a species, the circumstances of no two breeds can 

 be so exactly similar as are all the members of a species. 

 How then shall we hold the circumstances to be the 

 creative agency to which the species is traced? It is the 

 fundamental article of Darwinism that there is no 

 tendency implanted in organic nature ruling its develop- 

 ment according to a definite plan : there is but a 

 tendency to vary equally in all directions, as the steam in 

 a boiler presses out equally at every point. What gives 

 form to this shapeless force is the repressive action of 

 Natural Selection, preventing development in all but a 

 few directions ; that is to say, external circumstances, not 

 innate power, makes a plant or animal what it is. But if 

 we say this we attribute to the one what we deny to the 

 other. Grant that there was no tendency in the develop- 

 ing creature to become a Woodcock, and we must allow 

 a tendency in the world around to make one, if it be 

 indeed a fact that this complex pattern and no other will 

 suit Nature's requirements, and avail for survival when 

 those differing but a hair's breadth from it have been 

 everywhere ruthlessly discarded. It is as easy as it is 

 futile to amuse ourselves with vague general statements 

 of the problem and airily to assume its solution. As we 

 attempt to look more closely, we find, inadequate as our 

 knowledge must be of the difficulties which in fact exist. 



