DARWIN MEMORIAL. 51 



his predecessors, and lived in a happier time. The facts had been 

 accumulated and co-ordinated ; men were ready to consider the 

 reason why facts were such, and none was better fitted than Darwin 

 — I should rather say none was so well fitted — to arrange and present 

 the facts and to draw the deductions therefrom. Ever a close ob- 

 server, practiced in many lands, student of all nature — especially 

 skilled as a geologist, a botanist, and a zoologist — endowed with a 

 severely judicial mind, honest above all, none like him had ever 

 grappled with the mystery of creation. For more than twenty 

 years he had pondered on the subject ; with impartial severity he 

 had weighed the evidence. He was, perforce, led to the conclusion 

 that all the living had been derived from past forms, with modifica- 

 tions incident to individuality ; the sums of the divergencies, small in 

 themselves, became large in the aggregate, became enormous in time. 

 The increasing beings, crowding upon each other, invading each 

 other's domains, struggled for the life into which they were born. 

 Happy were those possessing some slight advantage — strength, 

 swiftness, dexterity, or adaptability resulting from modification of 

 structure — for they could procure place or food at the expense of 

 their competitors, and the characters that gave them victory secured, 

 likewise, the temporary ascendancy of their kind. How great is 

 this variability our domesticated animals attest ; how ancient is our 

 globe geology teaches ; that the race is to the strong or the cunning 

 observation of inferior nature assures. With known variability, 

 time, and space, what could not result ? Which, then, was the more 

 probable that Nature — or, if you will, the Creator — had always 

 operated under law, or that there had been constant interference? 

 Thus were the issues fairly joined. On the one hand, Creation 

 was the rallying cry ; on the other, Evolution and Darwin. But 

 what meant the opposed terms ? It is surely but reasonable to ask 

 the question. The evolutionists conceded the reasonableness, and 

 gladly accepted the ordeal. Could less be required of the creation- 

 ists? In reverential mood would I submit the alternatives. If they 

 repel, blame not me. I have long and fruitlessly searched for better. 



