MORPHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT 39 



find that organs which often subserve very different 

 functions have a common origin, and are identical in 

 despite of the modifications through which they have 

 been adapted to their peculiar uses. 



Such are, briefly stated, the general proofs of 

 evolution, or at least the principal among them ; I 

 must be content with this short statement. 



Are these proofs satisfactory, are they convincing, 

 and what do they demonstrate ? 



To an impartial mind, they prove one thing to 

 begin with, and it is that if we accept the creation 

 theory, we must believe that creation has been going 

 on through the whole series of past ages, and that 

 every type of life has been specially created at some 

 time or other, being in most, if not all cases, very 

 similar to types which have lived before, and must 

 also have been specially created. We must believe 

 that the Creator while obeying a general tendency to 

 progress, has first created some types of life which He, 

 soon after, has diversified in various directions ; and 

 that some of these types were doubtless of inferior 

 order, since they have died out, while the types of new 

 creation, the new species or varieties, have taken their 

 place. But then, these new species also have proved 

 inferior, and again new types have been created, or, 

 again, without proving inferior, they have soon had new 

 companions more perfect. Upon the whole, innumer- 



