204 



WALTER KIDD, KSQ., M.D., V.7..S., 



earth, air, and water. His laitli in a Person Whose mind 

 he darkly discerns in His manifold works, is deemed un- 

 Avortliy of the consideration Avhich the laith of an evolution- 

 ist in a kaleidoscopic " law " deserves. The factfi of biology 

 arc the common possession of i)oth, but tiie man who sees in 

 them " broken lights" of One Whom he knows by "verified 

 experience," is not less worthy than his opponent of the 

 honoured attribute, '"scientific." 



But another side to this question is inextricably mixed 

 with the point at issue, " Creation or Evolution? " A simple 

 illustration will best introduce this line of evidence. The 

 history of any fertilized ovum, say in mammalia, furnishes one 

 continuous commentary upon design, plan, preparation. It 

 is not enough to study to the uttermost the stages through 

 which the embryo itself passes until the birth of the individual. 

 The environments which it meets from the outset, a vascular 

 mucous membrane, an arterial circulation capable of being 

 massed together for the placenta, a distensible sac, space in 

 which enlargement can take place, muscular power for its 

 eventual extrusion, each and all of these is an essential factor 

 in its development. 



Not less necessary is it to study, in the controversy as to 

 design in general, that marvellous preparation of the environ- 

 ments for all life, from man to the protozoa. In this region 

 neither '• evolution," " progressive transformation," " siu'vival 

 of the fittest," ''natural selection," ''sexual selection," '"he- 

 redity," nor their discreditable ally, " accident," using this 

 term in its broadest meaning, will even verbally account for 

 the amazuig fitness of the enviroimients for the organisms 

 "about to be." No longer, though employed in this |)repara- 

 tion, are the secondary laws of physics and chemistry in 

 question. No talk of the cooling globe, with its phenomena 

 of upturnings, flexures, bendings of strata, metamorphosis of 

 rocks, o})ening of fractures with production of volcanoes, 

 earthquakes and the like, will touch the fringe of tlic sub- 

 ject, nor will theorizing as to nebular condensation help the 

 case, nor will it avail to point out that the organic remains of 

 myriads of buried invertebrata and cryptogams have in the 

 dim past of Cambrian, Silurian, Carboniferous and Cretaceous 

 times gone to form in measure the very home and food of 

 their successors, and heirs. It can hardly be that by means 

 of one mechanical law all vegetable and animal life has been 

 evolved, their requirements being met by other blind laws, 

 such as those of ]»liysics and chemistry, a uiatclilcss e'uviron- 



