THE HOUSE-FLY 5 



ments and opinions, which ordinarily even at the 

 present day pass current as facts, are erroneous and 

 misleading. Accordingly, the reader need not be sur- 

 prised at some statements in the following pages at 

 variance with what may be met with elsewhere. 



The old fanciful dogma that everything existing was 

 actually created "in the beginning," and "for a pur- 

 pose/' was once ardently championed as controverting 

 aggressive Voltairean iatheism, but it must be now re- 

 cognised as an unwarranted assumption, deduced from 

 an orthodox doctrine of " design," which in itself seems 

 acceptably agreeable with the idea of unity, consistency, 

 and perfection in Creation and The Creator. In fact 

 the said " fanciful " dogma never really was an integral 

 part of Christian Catholic doctrine. The house-fly, as 

 we know it, is absolutely the developed product of 

 human insanitation ; scientifically and practically it is 

 a new "species" of an old "genus" established by 

 a long course of breeding in man-made environments. 



