2 DEVELOPMENT AND CREATION. 



of species we must choose one of these two possi- 

 bilities, for a third there is not. 



But as Virchow, like many other opponents of the 

 doctrine of evolution, constantly confounds this latter 

 proposition with the doctrine of descent, and that 

 again with Darwinism, it will not be superfluous to 

 indicate here, in a few words, the limitation and sub- 

 ordination of these three great theories. 



I. The general doctrine of development, the pro- 

 genesis-theory or evolution-hypothesis (in the widest 

 sense), as a comprehensive philosophical view of the 

 universe, assumes that a vast, uniform, uninterrupted 

 and eternal process of development obtains throughout 

 all nature ; and that all natural phenomena without 

 exception, from the motions of the heavenly bodies 

 and the fall of a rolling stone to the growth of 

 plants and the consciousness of men, obey one and 

 the same great law of causation ; that all may be 

 ultimately referred to the mechanics of atoms the 

 mechanical or mechanistic, homogeneous or monistic 

 view of the universe ; in one word, Monism. 



II. The doctrine of derivation, or theory of descent, 

 as a comprehensive theory of the natural origin of all 

 organisms, assumes that all compound organisms are 

 derived from simple ones, all many-celled animals and 

 plants from single-celled ones, and these last from 

 quite simple primary organisms from monads. As 



