THE SPECIAL-CREATlON-HYPOTnESIS. 425 



thought of this creature ? Were its structure and the accom- 

 panying instinct divinely planned to fit it to this particular 

 habitat ? 



Many such questions might be asked which, if answered as 

 the current theory necessitates, imply a divine nature hardly 

 like that otherwise assumed. 



§ 114. Those who espouse the aboriginal hypothesis en- 

 tangle themselves in yet other theological difficulties. This 

 assumption that each kind of organism was specially de- 

 signed, carries with it the implication that the designer 

 intended everything which results from the design. There is 

 no escape from the admission that if organisms were severally 

 constructed with a view to their respective ends, then the 

 character of the constructor is indicated both by the ends 

 themselves, and the perfection or imperfection with which 

 the organisms are fitted to them. Observe the consequences. 



Without dwelling on the question recently raised, why 

 during untold millions of years there existed on the Earth 

 no beings endowed with capacities for wide thought aud 

 high feeling, we may content ourselves with asking why, 

 at present, the Earth is largely peopled by creatures which 

 inflict on one another so much suffering? Omitting the 

 human race, whose defects and miseries the current theology 

 professes to account for, and limiting ourselves to the lower 

 creation, what must we think of the countless different pain- 

 inflicting appliances and instincts with which animals are 

 endowed? Not only now, and not only ever since men have 

 lived, has the Earth been a scene of warfare among all 

 sentient creatures; but palaeontology shows us that from the 

 earliest eras geologically recorded, there has been going on 

 this universal carnage. Fossil structures, in common with 

 the structures of existing animals, show us elaborate weapons 

 for destroying other animals. We have unmistakable proof 

 that throughout all past time, there has been a ceaseless 

 devouring of the weak by the strong. How is this to 



