102 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



certain kinds of animals very closely, and has 

 arrived at the conviction that the doctrine of 

 evolution is theoretically sound. I regard it as 

 showing an immense advance that a Catholic 

 priest should venture to come to this conclusion, 

 and I regret that so many Protestant clergy are 

 unable to do the same. But at this point the 

 Church suddenly intervenes, and reminds Father 

 Wasmann that the types were created, and there- 

 fore a compromise is necessary. So he adopts the 

 theory that the Creator once for all created certain 

 types, and that these have subsequently developed. 

 It is plain that he fails to reconcile these opposed 

 theories, the theory of permanence and the theory 

 of descent or evolution. If we examine what Was- 

 mann considers as natural types originally created 

 I should prefer to call them supernatural they 

 prove to vary incalculably among themselves; 

 sometimes we have large groups, sometimes small. 

 Sometimes we are told that God created a primitive 

 ammonite, then a primitive horse, a primitive ant, 

 and so on. I will not argue about metaphysics, 

 but I challenge the attempt to answer a purely 

 zoological question with metaphysical phrases of 

 this kind.' 



The speaker might have saved himself the 

 trouble of thus stating my views on polyphy- 

 letic evolution, if he had studied more closely 

 what I really think on the subject. He might 



