134 



FACTS AND FANCIES 



more and more tending to prove the existence 

 of highly complex creative laws in connection 

 with the great plan of the Creator as carried 

 out in geological time. These new facts should 

 also warn the ordinary reader of the danger 

 of receiving without due caution those general 

 and often boastful assertions respecting these 

 great and intricate questions made by persons 

 not acquainted with their actual difificu^'y, or by 

 enthusiastic speculators disposed to overlook 

 everything not in accordance with their pre- 

 conceived ideas. 



It may be asked, Is there, then, no place in 

 the geological record even for theistic evolu- 

 tion? This it would be rash to affirm. We 

 can only say that up to this time there is no 

 proof of it. If nature has followed this meth- 

 od, she seems carefully to have concealed the 

 process. If such changes have occurred as to 

 evolve from a species, say of mollusk or coral, 

 belonging to one geological period some form 

 found in another period, and recognized as a 

 distinct species, we have to suppose that the 

 capacity for such change was in some way im- 

 planted in the species on its creation, and ready 

 to be developed under favorable conditions or 

 in the lapse of time. For example, we may 



