37 



onus probandi rests with them, and no proof has ever yet been 

 given. Whereas the possibility of the other view has been 

 proved, and the probability of its truth elsewhere derived 

 amounts to a moral conviction. 



I would only here add one more remark upon this objection, 

 and that is, because well - marked types may and have con- 

 tinued unchanged for indefinite periods, that does not contro- 

 vert the possibility of their subsequently changing when new 

 forces are brought to bear upon them by being in altered 

 conditions ; nor does it at all interfere with the doctrine of 

 evolution. 



It is worth while here observing that no form of the doctrine 

 of evolution can be maintained which does not recognize this 

 fact, which has been called a Retention of Type ; by which 

 is meant that co- existent with a gradual evolution of forms of 

 life in an ascending scale, there are members of nearly every 

 group still living and retaining the characters generally of a 

 comparatively lower grade of that group. To say that natu- 

 rally less highly organized or complex forms are less liable 

 to vary, and are more adaptable to surrounding conditions, 

 is to state a palpable fact, and accounts so far for their 

 present existence. Such retention of types must, therefore, 

 be recognized by every one who holds to the doctrine of evo- 

 lution. 



Now, admit the fact of indefinite variation in offspring; admit 

 the possibility of a higher, but apparently untraceable, law re- 

 gulating the variation with an ultimate purpose, as Mr. Darwin 

 does in the passage I have quoted, wherein he says: The birth 

 of the species and of the individual are equally parts of that 

 grand sequence of events which our minds refuse to accept as 

 the result of blind chance,^^ — and you will find no difficulty in 

 embracing the doctrine of evolution. Secondary causes, such, 

 for example, as natural selection, may be the means of con- 

 trolling those variations, favouring some rather than others ; but 

 those secondary causes are themselves subject to higher laws, 

 which are recognizable when we take in a broad and extended 

 view of nature, but apparently absent in a contracted view : 

 and it is the contracted view which encourages all ideas of 

 chance without a higher and Providential Power. 



The fourth view, or that of the author of this essay, requires 

 no further elucidation than is expressed in the terms given on 

 p. 4, as he ventures to think each point or element has been 

 established in considering those of the other views. 



