LORD SALISBURY ON EVOLUTION. 567* 



trine may similarly be met by tlie counter-demand for facts in 

 support of the doctrine opposed to it. Perhaps Lord Salisbury 

 will meet this demand by quoting the statements contained in the 

 book of Genesis. But even if, ignoring the skepticism of pro- 

 fessed biblical critics, such as the Rev. Prof. Cheyne, he puts ab- 

 solute faith in these statements current among nomadic groups 

 of shepherds three thousand years ago, he is obliged to admit that 

 these alleged facts are not of the class he refers to when he asks 

 for proof of the hypothesis of natural selection : they are not 

 facts of direct observation. 



Thus, supposing the two hypotheses special creation and evo- 

 lution by natural selection are to be tested by the directly 

 observed facts assigned in their support, then, if the hypothesis 

 of evolution by natural selection is to be rejected because there 

 are no directly observed facts which prove it, the hypothesis of 

 special creation must be rejected for the same reason. Nobody 

 has seen a species evolved and nobody has seen a species created. 



But now from the question of direct evidence let us pass to the 

 question of indirect evidence. Let us ask if there are any positive 

 facts of observation which tend to justify the one, and whether 

 there are any positive facts of observation which tend to justify 

 the other. Here a comparison leads to widely different results* 

 Familiar though some of the facts are, I must be excused for 

 specifying them, since Lord Salisbury ignores them. 



Though, because most of the geological record ha^ been de- 

 stroyed while the remnant has been dislocated or blurred, and 

 because so small a part an infinitesimal part of this remnant 

 has been examined, paleontology furnishes but broken evidence, 

 yet the more the Earth's strata are examined the more they tes- 

 tify that organic forms have arisen by modifications upon modifi- 

 cations. Recent discoveries, especially those which show by inter- 

 mediate forms that the bird-type is derived from the reptile-type, 

 and those which show that, beginning with the four- toed Orohip- 

 pus of the Eocene strata, we ascend in later strata, through Meso- 

 hippus, Miohippus, Protohippus, and Pliohippus, up to the mod- 

 ern horse, have given strong support to the hypothesis of evolu- 

 tion : support so strong that Prof. Huxley, who had up to the 

 time he saw Prof. Marsh's fossils made reservations in his accept- 

 ance of the hypothesis, thereafter accepted it without reserve. 

 Not only do fossils furnish in this and other cases the lines of 

 linear ascent to existing forms, but they simultaneously disclose 

 a general fact of great significance the fact that early types of 

 creatures in any class display the commonest or most general 

 traits of structure, and that later types of the same class are more 

 specialized in this or that direction : relationships which are neces- 



