98 SIR WILLIAM FLOWER 



of science, I have done all that I promised, and must leave, in 

 far more competent hands, the part of the subject especially 

 appropriate for discussion at this meeting. I may, however, 

 perhaps be allowed to put a few plain and simple considerations 

 before you which may have some bearing upon the subject. I 

 said at the commencement of this paper that it has long been 

 admitted by all educated persons, whatever their religious faith 

 may be, that that very universal, but still most wonderful process, 

 the commencement and gradual development of a new individual 

 of whatever living form, whether plant, animal, or man, takes 

 place according to definite and regularly acting laws, without 

 miraculous interposition. Further than this, I believe that every 

 one will admit that the production of the various races or breeds 

 of domestic animals is brought about by a similar means. We 

 do not think it necessary to call in any special intervention of 

 creative power to produce a short-horned race of cattle, or to 

 account for the difference between a bulldog and a greyhound, 

 a Dorking and a Cochin China fowl. The gradual modifications 

 by which these races were produced, having taken place under 

 our own eyes as it were, we are satisfied that they are the 

 consequence of what we call natural laws, modified and directed 

 in these particular cases by man's agency. We have even gone 

 further, having long admitted, without the slightest fear of 

 producing a collision with religious faith, that variation has taken 

 place among animals in a wild state, producing local races of 

 more or less stable and permanent character, and brought about 

 by the influence of food, climate, and other surrounding circum- 

 stances. The evidences of the Divine government of the world, 

 and of the Christian faith, have been sufficient for us notwith- 

 standing our knowledge that the individual was created according 

 to law, and that the race or variety was also created according to 

 law. In what way, then, can they be affected by the knowledge 

 that the somewhat greater modifications, which we call species, 

 were also created according to law ? The difficulties, which to 

 some minds seem insuperable, remain exactly as they were ; the 

 proofs, which to others are so convincing, are entirely unaffected 

 by this widening of scientific knowledge. Even to what is to 

 many the supreme difficulty of all, the origin of man, the same 



