506 STRUCTURE AND LIFE HISTORIES 
connection, but only a mental one; that is, they merely re- 
flected the succession of ideas as they developed in the 
mind of the Creator, but were not genetically related to 
each other. "We must . , . look to some cause outside 
of Nature, corresponding in kind to the intelligence of 
man, though so different in degree, for all the phenomena 
connected with the existence of animals in their wild 
state .... Breeds among animals are the work of man : 
Species were created by God." 1 
But to state that species were created by God does not 
satisfy the legitimate curiosity of the scientific man. 
What he wishes to know is: By what method was creation 
accomplished? God might have worked in various ways. 
Now, the study of Nature has never revealed to us but one 
method by which living things originate, and that is by 
descent from preexisting parents. Agassiz's hypothesis 
contradicts this. All oaks now-a-days are derived by 
descent from preexisting oaks, but the first oak, accord- 
ing to the doctrine of special creation, was created by 
supernatural means; it had no ancestors. The chief objec- 
tion to the acceptance of this hypothesis is that the more 
profoundly and accurately we study living things, the more 
obvious it becomes that truth lies in another direction. 
2. Lamarck's Hypothesis. The noted French naturalist, 
Lamarck, taught that all living things have been derived 
from preexisting forms; that the effects of use and disuse 
caused changes in bodily structure; that these changes 
were inherited and accentuated from generation to genera- 
tion; that, being of use, those individuals possessing the 
changes in greatest perfection survived while others per- 
1 Agassiz, L. "Methods of Study in Natural History," Boston, 1893, 
pp. 146, 147. 
