56 PROFESSOR DUNS ON THE 



have to arrange them in four series — the algal type, the moss type, the 

 fern type, and the flowering plant type ; and, when it is found that we have 

 set out on an impossible endeavour, the fascinating simplicity with which 

 we started entirely disappears, and we find we have undertaken a hopeless 

 task. The evolutionists cannot put them all into one line ; they see at least 

 four different lines of descent, and that below these four lines all attempt 

 at unity is utterly impossible, because the lines end, and each forms a cul- 

 de-sac. There is no connecting link between these four groups, and this fact 

 is now generally admitted. Dr. Goebel, in the last volume of the last 

 edition of the Encyclopcedia Britannica, states that the gap between the mosses 

 and ferns is the widest he knows of in the vegetable kingdom, and he is one 

 who is favourably disposed towards the theory of descent. But the gap is 

 equally wide between the other groups, the algae and the rest being divided 

 by tremendous gaps. Suppose, however, we take one of the groups, and 

 attempt to go backwards. There is the moss group, which is a very small 

 one. If you take that group, you can easily trace the species to two 

 ancestors — the ordinary moss and the liver-moss. If you take the algae 

 group, you find that it also ends blindly in the olive, the red, and the green 

 series of sea-weeds, which are excessively isolated, and cannot be traced to 

 any common ancestors, but all end blindly. Consequently, all the fas- 

 cinating simplicity has entirely gone ; and this is admitted by those who 

 advocate the theory of descent. They say, " As yet you can't go further 

 back ;" you have the threads of descent all hanging loose in the air, and 

 you cannot trace them t,o any common point, nor to any ancestor, because, 

 from their peculiar nature, they are so tender that their remains could not 

 have been preserved in the early rocks ; and therefore, as the means of 

 tracing them have disappeared, the problem of their ancestry must remain 

 for ever unsolved. If we take the vascular cryptogams, the ferns, horse- 

 tails, and lycopods, it will be found that they are all equally distinct to the 

 very end. We have in their case the same story over again. Then, when 

 we come to the flowering plants, it is generally admitted to be rather 

 difficult to show how the higher ones have developed from the pine- 

 trees, which the theory requires. The most far-fetched and impossible 

 hypotheses and assumptions have to be adopted in any such attempt. As a 

 rule, the theory requires that what is never known to happen now used to 

 happen quite commonly in bygone times, and, when you ask for the proof, 

 you must be satisfied with the statement that everything that would have 

 proved the theory has unfortunately disappeared. And yet why all the inter- 

 mediate forms that would have proved it have disappeared is not apparent. 

 The fossil remains of numerous species have been preserved in certain 

 strata — in the coal measures, among the miocene flora of Switzerland, and 

 in some of the chalk strata ; and one naturally asks why the intermediate 

 forms, which could alone prove the theory, should all have disappeared. 

 So that really and truly, after the first feeling of fascination, which, as I have 

 said, is very strong, exercised by the supposition that the whole of this natural 

 system is one of blood-relationship — a feeling which no botanist or geologist 



