ch. ix.] SPECIAL-CREATION, Oil DERIVATION 1 453 



bear, the differences are less. As we descend another step, 

 and compare lions with lynxes, jaguars, leopards and cats, 

 which belong to the same family, we find the points of 

 divergence fewer and less characteristic. Between wild and 

 domestic cats there is still less difference ; while between the 

 various breeds of the domestic cat the distinctions are limited 

 to superficial characteristics of size, colour, and general 

 intelligence. Hence, in classifying contemporary organisms 

 of high development, naturalists are never in doubt as to the 

 class, or order, and but seldom as to the family ; while they 

 are not unfrequently in doubt as to the genus, and are con- 

 tinually disputing as to the species or variety to which a 

 given form belongs. As we descend in the scale of develop- 

 ment, and go back in geologic time, the determination of 

 genera becomes more and more difficult. Doubts frequently 

 arise with reference to family, order, and class. And at last 

 even the sub-kingdom becomes doubtful, as is strikingly 

 shown by the difficulty in classifying the lowly animals 

 provisionally grouped by Cuvier as radiata, when contrasted 

 with the ease with which naturalists distinguish the higher 

 sub-kingdoms. 



Now all this complex arrangement of organisms in groups 

 within groups, resembling each other at the bottom of the 

 scale and differing most widely at the top, is just the arrange- 

 ment which, as we have seen, must result from genetic 

 relationship ; and upon any other theory than that of deriva- 

 tion it is utterly inexplicable. If each species has been 

 separately created, no reason can be assigned for such an 

 arrangement, — unless perchance someone can be found hardy 

 enough to maintain that it was intended as a snare and a 

 delusion for human intelligence. The old opponents of 

 geology, who strove to maintain at whatever cost the 

 scientific credit of the Mosaic myth of the creation, asserted 

 that fossil plants and animals were created already dead 

 and petrified, just for the fun of the thing. Manifestly 



