THE LESSON OF EVOLUTION 31 



we learn the more we see that secondary law extends 

 much further than we had expected, and we begin to 

 think that all may be due to secondary laws. 



We cannot doubt but that the most complicated 

 cases of inheritance such as the growth of the train 

 feathers of a peacock, or the gorgeous wings of a 

 butterfly are due to secondary laws, although the 

 processes are quite incomprehensible to us. We be- 

 lieve these to be due to secondary laws, because we see 

 them taking place in exactly the same order over and 

 over again ; and, in the case of the peacock, we know 

 that if we pull out the feathers new ones, similar to 

 the old, will replace them. So that we can bring 

 these laws into play whenever we choose. It is not 

 sufficient, therefore, to say that an action is not due to 

 secondary law because it is so wonderfully intricate, 

 or because it is incomprehensible to us. We must be 

 able to show, either that the action is antagonistic to 

 known natural laws, or that the result could not be 

 due to a combination of any natural laws that we 

 have already discovered. That is, we must show a 

 discontinuity in the phenomena. Can any such breaks 

 be discovered ? 



The origin of the material universe, which was the 

 starting point of the present evolutionary process, 

 appears to us to have been a new departure in 

 natural law. But we cannot feel certain about it, 

 for we do not know, and never can know, what went 

 before. But with the origin of life on the earth it is 

 different. The intimate structure of organic beings, as 

 well as their order of development on the earth, point 

 to the conclusion that they are all derived from a 

 common ancestor, and that living protoplasm was 



