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cessively peopled the earth, from the lowest to the highest, are 

 continuous ; as generation followed generation improvements have 

 been effected ; these being inherited, other improvements have 

 been made, these also have become inherited, till the sum of attain- 

 ment of the present has been reached. As development proceeded 

 each improvement has been inherited at an earlier age, so that at 

 length the improvements, which it took millions of years to accom- 

 plish, are sketched in nine months, fully carried out in from 20 to 

 30 years. That this is the true theory of life how many indica- 

 tions there are! It happens that the materials of earlier structures 

 have not yet been used up ; witness the remnant of the fish 

 in the vertebrae which form the coccyx in man — the tail of the fish 

 not yet obliterated. Are not the bones of the arm and hand of man 

 the same bones that form the pectoral fin of the fish, the wing of 

 the bird, the paddle of the dolphin, the fore leg of the deer, horse, 

 dog, &c. ? The opponent to the doctrine of evolution has nothing 

 to say to all this, he replies, God created species. 'But this is 

 admitted on both sides. It comes to this, then, that the one asserts 

 that God created species by miracle, that is by some method un- 

 known, that we have never observed, that we cannot even conceive ; 

 the other asserts that in the past, as in the present, God has worked 

 by the same great method of law and order. The one asserts that 

 an unchangeable God has changed His methods ; the other, that 

 He is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 



So far our argument might have been carried before the time of 

 Darwin. What light have his own investigations thrown on the 

 subject? Mr. Darwin, like Sir Charles Lyell, believes that our 

 knowledge of the past can only be inferred from our knowledge of 

 the present. When he visited the Galapagos islands in the Beagle, 

 he was struck by the phenomena exhibited by their living inhabi- 

 tants. In general appearance the fauna was American, but the 

 specific forms were distinct. They differed in different islands of 

 the same group, the degree of divergence being less between the 

 forms of the different islands than that between those of the islands 

 and the continent. He at once thought of descent with modifica- 

 tion as the cause. He had also with his own hands dug up pieces 



