184 WALTER KIDD, ESQ., M.D., P.Z.S., 



tant. Avork of all has been done by that master in biology, 

 co-discoverer of natural selection, seceder from the ranks of 

 (n-thodox Darwinism, opponent of the origin of man's higher 

 fiiculties through natural selection. Dr. Wallace. Tn this 

 division of the subject it may be noted that the theory of 

 creation seldom receives fair handling from its opponents. 

 There is a prevalent misapprehension as to what Genesis 

 does and does not say. Details, times, and methods are 

 ascribed to that Infinite Mind which planned the cosmos, 

 not only by the mistaken opponents, but also by many 

 mistaken defenders of the theory. In those early records 

 Avritten {pace Wellhausen !) in the sixteenth century before 

 oxu' era, the marvel is to observe how the "current science" 

 of Egypt and Babylon has been studiously avoided, how as 

 much cosmogony as the early readers could apprehend, or 

 the later need, was given in two short chapters, and how 

 place was left in the two first verses, before the ordering of 

 this earth for man commenced, as announced in the third 

 verse, for all those geological epochs Avhich science has so 

 lately discovered. The " British Cuvier," as Huxley called 

 Owen, summarised in his great axiom the true view of 

 creation, with specific centres — " The continuous operation 

 of the ordained becoming of living things'" — from Laurentian 

 times to the age of man. When this aspect of creation is 

 alhnved fair play, most of the difficulties as to geographical 

 distribution of p]a?its and animals disappear. Various curi- 

 ous questions may be asked by evolutionists (and ingenious 

 answers supf)lied by their own theory) as to such facts as 

 geographical restriction and natural affinity being correlated, 

 as to the same plan obtaining in extinct as well as in living 

 species of plants and animals, as to remoteness of affinity and 

 range of dispersal, or as to the reason for difference in type 

 on opposite sides of a mountain-chain. All such general 

 facts, those of emigration of forms of life from neighbouring 

 continents to oceanic islands, and such as the large percent- 

 age of peculiar faunee and florae in oceanic islands of known 

 high antiquity, the law" that " every s^jecies has come into 

 existence coincident in time and space with a pre-existing 

 allied species," find their explanation not less naturally under 

 the above vicAv of creation than under any theory t)f descent 

 Avith modifications. One continental island may he considered 

 as an example. The Australian mammalian fauna is limited to 

 a feAV loAV types, marsupials, bats, rodents, and the oviparous 

 moiiotremata : and looked at dispassionately, this adaptation 



