170 REV. G. F. WHIDBORNE, M.A., ON QUESTIONS INVOLVED 
centre, helped on by data from intervening arcs, CD, EF, 
etc., representing various geological ages; and certainly 
very often surprismg and fascinating results are thus 
obtained. Certain chains, for instance, LN, MN, appearing to 
result in common ancestry, are brought to ght, and these 
are regarded, therefore, as proofs of extreme evolution. 
But the difficulty hes in the fact, that this process of 
investigation is backward. It does not take into account 
that in the action of evolution during any one geologic age 
the limitations now seen in the subsequent ages were non- 
existent. It is one thing to draw lnes backward from a 
definite are and thereby to find the centre; it is a totally 
different thing to start from the centre and by the sole 
action of evolution to produce lines which shall happen to 
impinge upon this definite are. The first process 1s limited 
by the existing are; the other process is entirely inde- 
pendent of it. What has really happened in nature accord- 
ing to the theory of extreme evolution is not that a given 
assemblage of forms have worked backwards to an original 
unity, but that primeval protoplasm has started from the 
beginning, and through the ages has gone on developing, 
until from its free action has resulted existing nature and 
nothing else. Of course it may be said that the evolutionist 
does, trace development forward as well as backward; but 
the crux is that in the argument the present age is accepted 
as definite, and thus practically becomes the basis on which 
that argument is built. The real question to be solved is not 
“Can existing nature be traced back to one protoplasm ?” 
but “ Could primeval protoplasm by its free development 
produce existing nature; and, if so, why did it produce that 
and nothing else?” Looked at thus, such theories as. 
“natural selection” and “survival of the fittest” do not 
seem to lead us very far towards a solution; because the 
proofs of them adduced either more or less assume the goal 
to which the starting-point is directed, or else imply, but do: 
not acknowledge, some independent force working from 
without, and thereby modifying the action of evolution by 
an ungauged element not of its nature. 
5 (2). Another and somewhat kindred difficulty arises from 
the fact of the existence of Species at all. Whatever value 
we may attach to species, whether we estimate them as. 
persistent or mutable, the fact of their existence is one of 
the most notable and widespread phenomena of nature, and 
one which has to be reckoned with by evolutionists. What 
