104 G. cox BOMPAS, P.G.S., P.R.G.S., ETC., ON 



liowish untalk-about-aljle all-alikeness to a some-liowisli and 

 in general talk-about-able not-all-alikeness," but we need not 

 thus abuse our inother-tongue. 



Before Darwin, the origin of species was not much con- 

 sidered ; though Linngeus, Lamarck, and others had given 

 hints of the line of thought he elaborated. Men saw the 

 various races of animals, distinct, incapable of crossing, 

 limited in their range, and assumed that species were created 

 where and as we now find them. So before geology opened 

 men's eyes to the history of the earth's structure, stretching 

 through a succession of ages, men thought the earth was 

 created in seven natural days. Darwin traced back the 

 history of animal life, and showed that the likeness of 

 structure was due to common ancestry, the unlikeness to 

 diverging variation moulded by natural and sexual selection 

 and varying circumstance, and rising in the general view 

 from lower to higher scale of being. 



For this growth of animated being the name Evolution 

 was devised, a convenient term though sometimes misused. 



Sceptics hailed it as a discovery, as if evolution explained 

 the origin of all things and dispensed with a Creator. Others 

 therefore feared that evolution might undermine the faith, 

 and denied its truth without caring to understand its nature. 

 Some men of science are still jealous of design lest it should 

 check investigation of natural causes, and some men of 

 religion still shrink from evolution as savouring of infidelity. 

 In truth evolution leaves both creation and faith untouched, 

 for evolution is but a mode of creation. 



Evolution is the product of two factors, Life and Circum- 

 stance. Life, including growth, variability, reproduction, 

 and the laws regulating these forms of life : Circumstance, 

 or environment, which moulds the growth, defines the course 

 of variation, and influences the nature of the ofispring. 



The distinction between these two factors is often forgot- 

 ten. The term Evolution is sometimes misused to confound 

 or efikce it. 



Life and its origin lay outside the scope of Darwin's 

 inquiry. He noted and traced out the facts or laws of 

 growth, of variability, of reproduction, but these attributes of 

 life he did not attempt to explain. 



The causes of growth as of life are beyond the interpre- 

 tation of science. 



Variation proceeds in a certain harmony, so that variation 

 of one part of a stjucture is accompanied by variation of 



