254 
Flank Attacks on Evolution . 
[May, 
immaterial— that new forms do not “ suddenly ” appear, but 
are the outcome of cumulative changes, each step so minute 
as to escape observation. 
Turn we to the second difficulty which M. de Casamajor 
encounters- — the question how a young animal, devoid of 
experience and strength, could exist without maternal care ? 
This seeming “ impossible fadl ” is got over to the present 
day in perhaps the majority of animal species. Many rep- 
tiles and amphibia, most fishes, the majority of inserts and 
mollusks, not to speak of lower forms of life, deposit their 
eggs and leave them to the tender mercies of the world. 
Such an egg receives and requires no more parental care than 
does the spore of a fern. Darwinism does not suppose the 
production of any but the very lowest forms of life except 
by mature parents. And amongst the Protozoa we find 
propagation without the slightest approach to the relations 
of parent and offspring. 
Darwinism, in short, does not suppose the two impossible 
fadts which M. de Casamajor is pleased to rank amongst its 
fundamental doctrines. Is it any transgression against 
courtesy if we, on our part, express the wish that before 
condemning Evolutionism as he does, he would at least make 
himself accurately acquainted with its peculiar tenets, and 
not ascribe to it Hirngespinste of his own. Might we not 
remind him of the desirability of making himself better 
acquainted with the conditions of animal life, and thus escape 
the error of declaring that “ every species ” requires in 
infancy the fostering care of parents ? 
We will now venture to assume “ the offensive,” and to 
enquire into the necessary results of the origin of animals, 
if it had taken place in the manner recognised by traditions 
and by the Old School of Natural History. Let us suppose 
that a pair of every animal species has been suddenly and 
specially created within the interval of (say) two or three 
literal days, and set at liberty to seek its sustenance : how T 
will such sustenance be found ? Everyone who has even a 
popular acquaintance with animal life is aware that multi- 
tudes of species subsist only upon the refuse and the debris 
of pre-existing animal or vegetable life. We have in most 
of the great groups carrion-feeders and devourers of excre- 
ment. The bones, the flesh, even the wool, the hair, the 
feathers, horns, and hoofs of defundb vertebrates furnish 
support to the hyaenas and the dog tribe, to the vultures and 
the crows, to fishes too numerous to enumerate, to carrion 
and dung-flies, to moths of the group Tineidae, to the necro- 
phagous beetles, the Sphaeridiidae, the Staphylinidae, the 
