THEORIES OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



" This prepares the way for a few remarks on the 

 present state of opinion with regard to the origin of 

 organic nature. The great difficulty here is the ap- 

 parent deter rninateness of species. These forms of 

 life being apparently unchangeable, or at least always 

 showing a tendency to return to the character from 

 which they have diverged, the idea arises that there 

 can have been no progression from one to another ; each 

 must have taken its special form, independently of 

 other forms, directly from the appointment of the 

 Creator. The Edinburgh Review writer says, ' they were 

 created by the hand of God and adapted to the con- 

 ditions of the period.' Now it is, in the first place, not 

 certain that species constantly maintain a fixed char- 

 acter, for we have seen that what were long considered 

 as determinate species have been transmuted into 

 others. Passing, however, from this fact, as it is not 

 generally received among men of science, there re- 

 main some great difficulties in connection with the idea 

 of special creation. First we should have to suppose, 

 as pointed out in my former volume, a most startling 

 diversity of plan in the divine workings, a great gen- 

 eral plan or system of law in the leading events of 

 world-making, and a plan of minute, nice operation, 

 and special attention in some of the mere details of the 

 process . The discrepancy between the two conceptions 

 is surely overpowering, when we allow ourselves to see 

 the whole matter in a steady and rational light. There 

 is, also, the striking fact of an ascertained historical 

 progress of plants and animals in the order of their 

 organization; marine and cellular plants and inverte- 

 brated animals first, afterwards higher examples of 



