24 EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION LECT. 



created, unless we can believe that matter, energy, 

 and life can originate spontaneously. 



Between the Special Creation and the Evolution 

 theory the contest has been a fierce one, for reasons 

 already given ; but it may be said that at the present 

 moment the last-named has gathered around it the 

 greater army. 



But it must be confessed, at the same time, that 

 no positive and direct proof of the truth of the evo- 

 lutionary theory has yet been given. It is true none 

 can be given either of the opposite theory. In the 

 very year, 1852, in which Naudin gave utterance 

 to his theory of the origin of species by means of 

 selection, Herbert Spencer published a short essay 

 on the Development Hypothesis, which has been re- 

 publishccl in his recent edition of Essays, as the first 

 of the whole series. In this essay he speaks of the 

 anti-evolutionists, who argue that " as in all our 

 experience we know no such phenomenon as trans- 

 mutation of species, it is unphilosophical to assume 

 that transmutation of species ever takes place," and 

 forget that " as in all our experience we have never 

 known a species created, it is unphilosophical to 

 assume that any species, has ever been created." 

 We cannot exactly adhere to this reasoning. If 

 species have been created, they may have been so 

 before man could see them, while if species are 



