40 EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION LECT. 



able creations must have taken place, from the Cam- 

 brian to the Quaternary period, during millions of 

 years, and it would seem as if the Creator has been 

 trying to evolve out of each given type the greatest 

 number of forms without altering the fundamental 

 structure of the type Also it would seem as if the 

 Creator evolved the higher types very slowly and 

 gradually, through small modifications in various parts, 

 by a sort of patching, an ever-mending and rearrang- 

 ing process, just as a man generally proceeds. Things 

 stand, therefore, exactly as they should stand if the 

 Creator had been unable to create immediately the 

 desired form or types ; if He had begun by inferior 

 forms which required much alteration to attain the 

 desired degree of efficiency. This inability to attain, 

 from the first, the desired result, is very striking ; 

 palaeontology amply illustrates it, and embryology 

 also ; and to many it may seem surprising, while 

 evolutionists, and believers in natural selection, do not 

 wonder at it. 



Palaeontology and embryology therefore, while not 

 disproving the creation theory, render it rather un- 

 intelligible to our reason, while they display facts 

 which seem very intelligible upon evolutionary views. 

 But can palaeontology and embryology, and all the 

 other facts appealed to by evolutionists, disprove 

 special creation, and establish the evolution theory 



