NATURAL SELECTION 71 



With most evolutionists the backbone of their 

 theory is the assumption that secondary agencies 

 alone have produced all organic forms. 



Darwin says, " To my mind it accords better with 

 what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the 

 Creator, that the production and extinction of the 

 past and present inhabitants of the world should have 

 been due to secondary causes, like those determining 

 the birth and the death of the individual." The 

 "secondary causes," as I understand him, are "the 

 laws impressed on matter." If this is true, then it 

 would seem that the Creator might have retired after 

 creating matter, or, at most, after creating the first 

 organism, and have let the work go on without his 

 further special care. 



Again, Darwin says that the facts, so far as he can 

 judge, do not " afford any evidence of the existence 

 of an innate tendency toward perfectibility or pro- 

 gressive development." * Again, he says, " I believe 

 in no law of necessary development." 



As for myself, I believe that mind was the goal of 

 creation which the Creator had in view. No other 

 theory gives a sufficient explanation of creation. 

 Without mind as the crowning work I would say that 

 creation would have been a failure. 



Does Mr. Darwin accept the theory that mind was 

 the intended goal of creation? And, if so, would he 

 say that the "secondary causes," "the laws im- 

 pressed on matter by the Creator," had the necessary 

 tendency, beyond the possibility of failure, to evolve 

 man endowed with mind? I think that he does not 

 accept this view. 



If the theory of evolution is true, the unbroken 

 chain of organic beings reaching from man back to 

 the first living being, extends, I presume, over at least 



* Origin of Species, p. 102, 5th Ed. 



