2 1 2 Traces of Unity in the Personal, 



difficult to find any evidence in favour of evolution in 

 the history of the rudimentary creatures whose very 

 vitality may be somewhat doubtful. Bacteria, the sim- 

 plest of all living units, may, as Dr. Bastian points out so 

 cleverly, be developed (possibly from inorganic elements) 

 almost at the will of the experimenter into monads, and 

 amoebae, and paramaeciae, or into the lowest forms of 

 fungi into forms of animal life, that is to say, or into 

 forms of vegetable life : but not much is to be built 

 upon this fact in favour of evolution. For what follows ? 

 Simply this that, instead of passing on into higher 

 forms of being, these forms are unstable in the highest 

 degree, and always in haste to break up again into 

 bacteria. The tendency to retrograde is, to say the 

 least, quite as marked as the tendency to advance ; and, 

 as respects evolution, the conclusion to be drawn here 

 is even that which has been drawn from the history of 

 the rose and dog this and no other. 



Nor can I find any evidence of a contrary sort in the 

 doctrine of unity upon which so much has been said. 

 According to this doctrine, each el8(o\ov has a firm 

 foundation, through its own Ibea, in the Divine Being, 

 Who is "the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever." 

 According to this doctrine, what is involved is, not 

 only unity in diversity, but diversity in unity. I am 

 not at liberty to think that any one difference can merge 

 in another, or that diversity can ever be lost in unity ; 

 and, to my mind, the doctrine of unity in diversity and 

 diversity in unity has little or no bearing, direct or 

 indirect, upon the doctrine of evolution. 



In a word, there is, so far as I can see, nothing to be 

 said in favour of evolution which need prevent me from 

 concluding that each creature was created as a necessary 

 part of a great whole, perfect in itself, and perfect in 



