WHAT IS DARWINISM? 163 



decisive importance. Strauss says, there are 

 three things which have been stumbling-blocks 

 in the way of science. First, the origin of life ; 

 second, the origin of consciousness; third, the 

 origin of reason. These are equivalent to the 

 gaps which, Principal Dawson says, exist in the 

 theory of evolution. He states them thus : 



1. That between dead and living matter. 



2. That between vegetable and animal life. 

 " These are necessarily the converse of each 

 other : the one deoxidizes and accumulates, 

 the other oxidizes and expends." 3. That 

 " between any species of plant or animal, and 

 any other species. It was this gap, and this 

 only, which Darwin undertook to fill up by 

 his great work on the origin of species, but, 

 notwithstanding the immense amount of mate- 

 rial thus expended, it yawns as wide as ever, 

 since it must be admitted that no case has been 

 ascertained in which an individual of one spe- 

 cies has transgressed the limits between it and 

 another species." 4. " Another gap is between 

 the nature of the animal and the self-conscious, 

 reasoning, and moral nature of man." (pp. 325- 

 328) 



Eirst, as to the gap between death and life ; 

 this is what Dr. Stirling calls the " gulf of all 



