152 GRADUAL MODIFICATION OF ANIMAL FORMS xi 



They also show many cases of gradual modification of 

 particular organs, probably always to the benefit of the race, 

 and also a general progress from lower to higher or more 

 specialised types : though, as in all other cases of progress 

 (human civilisation, for instance), attended with many ex- 

 ceptions, some local and temporary, some only apparent. 



Whether the inferences which seem to me to follow from 

 these facts are true or not may still be an open question ; for 

 the sake of the stimulus that an open question of this sort 

 lends to scientific research I am very glad that it is so ; but 

 if true, if we are led by them to the conclusion that the 

 world we live in is a world of gradual growth and progress, 

 and orderly evolution, what grander view of the Creation and 

 the history of that world can we have opened to us ? 



