PLAN AND PUKPOSE IN NATUKE. 225 



not prepared to mention any special case of butterflies being 

 discovered in the Secondary age ; but I have read that they have 

 been frequently discovered in the strata of this age. 



The Chairman. — Yes, along with other forms of insect life. 



The Author. — In speaking of certain types in the Secondary 

 Period, I referred, not so much to insects as to the lai'ger 

 vertebrate animals which died out before the varied reptilian /orms 

 of the Tertiary Period appeared. 



It is true that Evolutionists can evolve something, and it is 

 marvellous to read Darwin's book on the domestication of plants 

 and animals, and the extent to which they can go ; but the strength 

 of the human mind and will is in this very line of work mostly 

 strikingly shown, and the argument therefrom supports rather 

 than conti'adicts Design. 



The Meeting was then adjourned. 



COMMUNICATIONS RECEIVED ON THE FOREGOING 



PAPER. 



Dr. BiDDLE writes : — 



This paper is likely to take high rank in the Transactions of the 

 Victoria Institute. It is especially powei'f ul in meeting the Evolu- 

 tionist challenge — as to there being no structure or instinct in one 

 being that is constituted for the exclusive benefit of another — by 

 producing the vegetable kingdom as an evident intermediary 

 between the mineral and the animal. The Evolutionary Theory, 

 in its " survival of the fittest," takes almost exclusive note of the 

 destructive faculties of the plants and animals with which it deals, 

 setting against these only the defensive. But it is even more won- 

 derful to observe the law of mutual benefit in the animal world, and to 

 find it based upon a no less evident regard for self (not necessarily 

 selfishness). Nothing less than consummate design could effect 

 such correlation and co-ordination of distinct and widely differing 

 faculties, originating in species having no common historic origin, 

 as are daily seen. Moreover, if the Oi-igin of Species be an enigma 

 which none but the Theist can logically solve, a still gTeater is the 



