140 REV. JOHN GERARD, F.L.S., ON SPECIES AND THEIR ORIGIN. 
whom their friend, Professor Orchard, was in the habit of exhibiting 
to them and then successfully demolishing. He believed that no 
such person existed. 
No one could afford to neglect the vast changes which had been 
introduced into almost every branch of science, since and as a direct 
result of the propounding of the theory of evolution. ‘The principle 
of evolution was held to a greater or less degree by almost all men 
of science. It was true that not all believed now in the Darwinian 
theory of selection. ‘They differed greatly as to the means, some 
were selectionist and some mutationists, but on the main principles 
most agreed, and they were hoping, not without reason, that the 
study of the “laws” of Mendel would throw new light on the great 
problem of the means by which evolution was effected. 
There were some who conceived of evolution as contrary to 
Christian belief. Yet it seemed to him that it was the study of 
this very problem of species or evolutionary lines that led men of 
science more and more to demand, to postulate, the existence of a 
first cause, a mind controlling and ruling all the processes of 
nature. 
Surely there was something infinitely grand in the conception 
of a universe brought slowly into being, from the beginning 
the germs of progress in it, gradually developing on the lines laid 
down by the Creator towards a future at which they could scarcely 
guess ; and this was more in accordance with their conception of 
the Divine power than that ideas of separate creations or a 
world knowing no change where all things were made for man and 
man lived beneath the jealous sovereignty of the Jehovah of the 
Hebrews. 
Note By Rev. A. Irvine, D.Sc., B.A. 
I have read the Rev. John Gerard’s paper on “Species and their 
Origin ” with considerable interest, and beg to be allowed to make 
a few remarks upon it. The paper is a careful piece of consecutive 
reasoning from the selected data, and one has no reason to find 
fault with the general conclusion, though the author’s phraseology 
is scarcely satisfactory when he speaks of mind asa ‘“‘ force” (p. 129). 
There seems to be very little of the inductive method in the 
paper ; and by omitting practically all consideration of the influence 
_ of environment he has given us only one side of the question under 
