ON CREATION OR EVOLUTION. ] 93 



much strain upon the resources of the developing embryo, 

 will be got rid of by natural selection, " or whatever adjus- 

 tive causes we may suppose to have been at work in the 

 adaptation of organisms to their surroundings." This state- 

 ment is quoted with the object of showing how much the 

 evolutionist feels the difficulty of bringing into line the gaps 

 and contradictions which he finds in the histories of embryos 

 with this necessary doctrine of recapitulation! Bat one 

 cannot but ask how any of the ancestral traits which are 

 exhibited can be of use to the individual embryo ? This 

 recapitulation may be a picture, and a very interesting one, 

 but a great authority lately admitted that these ancestral 

 traits are "rudely hidicated," " roughly represented " ; and 

 in the vegetable kingdom "recapitulation" has been very 

 scantily observed. Professor Ray Lankester said of this 

 doctrine " though it is now recognised that 'recapitulation' 

 is vastly and bewilderingly modified by special adaptations 

 in every case, yet the principle has served, and still serves, as 

 a guide of great value."* In very much of the arguments 

 from embryology in favour of evolution there is more of the 

 teacher of current biology with epitomes and diagrams at 

 his elbov/, than of the interrogator of nature. 



The five lines of indirect evidence for the theory of evolu- 

 tion have now been shortly examined, and it is maintained 

 that Classification and Geographical Distribution are 

 equally in favour of this theory and its rival, Palaeontology, 

 too imperfect as yet to give a final verdict, but considered by 

 a great living authority to be on the lohole adverse to evolution 

 — Rudimentary or Vestigial characters, double-edged and 

 uncertain — Embryology, suicidal if pressed much in favour 

 of evolution. Of these five. Embryology by Romanes ;t 

 Palaeontology by Huxley ;| Geographical Distribution in 

 connection with Palteontology by Huxley ;§ have all been 

 said to be the strongest of the lines of argument, and 

 Vestigial Characters by Huxley to have been the most 

 potent in promoting general acceptance of the doctrine of 

 organic evolution.|| 



The question must be considered how it comes that the 

 great majority of eminent living biologists accept the theory 



* Encyclopcadia Britannica, vol. xxiv, p. 811. 

 t Darioin and after Darwin, part I, p. 155. 

 X Nature, June 21, 1883 ; November 1, 1894. 

 § Encyclopedia Britannica, vol. viii. 

 II Ihid., p. 751. 



