254 



other writers. Mr. Darwin and his disciples have taught in 

 their works that 



5. A primitive speck of matter originally came into being. 

 Some admit that such primordial plasm was an act of creation ; 

 others, like Dr. Bastian, that it was evolved from not-living 

 matter by the agency of physical forces. Professor Huxley has 

 called it "Protoplasm/^ or the "physical basis of life.''^ Pro- 

 fessor Haokel and Dr. Bastian believe that such specks of 

 protoplasm, in the form of protistse and protamoebse are con- 

 stantly being evolved in myriads in the fine mud of our ponds 

 and ditches. 



6. Given the speck of matter, Mr. Darwin and his followers 

 have taught, that by inherent blind physical forces, such speck 

 or specks of living matter have given origin to every plant, tree, 

 animal, and human being in the world. I expresslj^, in the 

 beginning of my remarks, for reasons which I will give in the 

 end, decline to associate men and animals together. 



7. Mr. Darwin and his followers have taught that such pri- 

 mitive specks of living matter have been endowed with a 

 potentiality, by means of which they varied into other living 

 things, slightly dissimilar from their predecessors; that these 

 again varied in some way advantageous to themselves, and so 

 survived in what they term the " struggle for existence,^^ 

 while the weaker or less fortunate forms perished and went out 

 of existence. 



8. They have taught that these survivors, by reason of their 

 innate potentiality and the operation of molecular forces and 

 interchanges, " evolved themselves into other forms, which 

 " struggled and were "selected/^ as the "survival of the 

 fittest^'' to vary again, diverge into new lines of development, 

 and so, through vast periods of time, become the living world 

 we now see around us. 



9. Darvv'inism essentially consists in the belief that living 

 things have been perfected from the weak to the strong — from 

 the formless to the formed — from the meanest fungi to the oak 

 of the forest — from the loAvest animalcule to the most perfectly 

 organized animal, and man himself, by forces which are known 

 to obtain in the inorganic world and are termed physical — 

 and those which, only existing in living beings, are termed 

 vital — such forces being correlated, and convertible into each 

 other. They deny the existence of an}^ external or miraculous 

 power, and consequently ignore a controlling and designing 

 Providence. They believe that the forces of the world are 

 self-acting and " self-odjusting.^^ ^ 



