86 



DR. ALFRED T. SCHOFIELD ON 



0. The fixity of species is another difficulty that has not yet 

 been sunnounted. Types of an intermediate cliaracter in animals 

 are indeed hard to find. The best chain of evolution that has been 

 in any way established, and very well advertised, is that of the 

 horse. But here, alas, is a very weak link, for the apocryphal 



Merchippus," on whom the claim so greatly depends, has been 

 deduced by a professor's inner consciousness solely from the 

 evidence of some teeth, which are declared to be its only true 

 remains. Sir \Y. Dawson describes this evolution of the horse as 

 worthless. 



The almost complete and greatly lamented absence of inter- 

 m.ediate types is, indeed, rather fatal, and if evolutionists were 

 not cheered with the vision of a great find " some day, I fear 

 they would almost despair. 



The modern substitution of Lamarck's evolution for Darwin's, 

 in other words, the action of environment for that of natural selec- 

 tion, does not help to prove the evolution of species. 



Evolution is indeed not the right word to apply to changes from 

 en\*ironment, unless it can be proved that such changes advance 

 the organism from a lower to a higher stage, indeed to another 

 species. As Mr. Arthur Sutton has pointed out from his pro- 

 longed studies of plant life: " Self-adaptation or environment is 

 not sufficient for the origin of fresh species.'' Indeed, differences 

 produced by envu'onment only last while in the environment. 

 George Klebs, Ph.D., stated at Darwin's jubilee that " So far as 

 experiments justify a conclusion, it would appear that changes due 

 to environment are not inherited by the offspring. Like all other 

 variations, they appear only so long as the special conditions 

 appear in the environment." The most that Darwin would ven- 

 ture on as to this was, that changed conditions of life may produce 

 a * * new sub-variety, ' ' a very different thing from a new species I 

 Modern professors are not so modest ; for in 1912 Professor 

 Henslow declared that spontaneous adaptability to changed con- 

 ditions of life is the origin of species — a statement broad enough to 

 require a great deal more proof than we have at present. 



Here Mendel and de Tries came to the rescue, and vrith their 

 wonderful instances of *' mutations " instead of variations, as 

 shown in peas in Hungary and evening primroses in Holland, 

 hoped to make matters easier. Jumps (or mutations) over gi'eat 

 gaps, enormous instead of imperceptible steps all the way, 

 reduced at once intermediate types from thousands to dozens. 

 AYhat force produces the jumps is quite obscure: for at present 

 mutation seems more of a freak than a certainty ; though 

 it must obey some undiscovered law. Mutation is, however, com- 

 patible with the language of the first of Genesis (which owes its 

 immortality largely to its unscientific wording). One can picture 



