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given pair were alike in possessing them would be represented 
by two to one against it. In the next generation it would be 
eight to one, and so on. But, next, we have to do, not with one 
series of changes only, but with a vast number of different series 
going on in different directions. If we are to have a large variety 
of animals produced from a common stock, all the probabilities 
must be combined against the separate variations, not by 
addition, but by multiplication, so that the probabilities 
against the production of all those separate forms become 
enormous.” Applying this principle to one of Darwin* s illus- 
trations — the fertilisation of orchids by means of insects — 
Mr. Ackland proceeds to show that the variation in the in- 
sects and flowers must take place at the same time and at the 
same place, or no result will follow to the insect, while the 
new variety of orchid must perish for want of an insect to 
fertilise it. “ It is this,” says he, which makes the suppo- 
sition of unlimited time almost useless, because, just in pro- 
portion as the time is increased, the probability of two 
independent events happening simultaneously is diminished.” 
Finally tested in this way, Mr. Ackland concludes that the 
theory completely breaks down. The theory, then, is un- 
tenable when tested by scientific tests, as it is also irrecon- 
cilable with the Word of Truth; for, although, as a theory, it 
does not discard a Creator in the first instance, it does with- 
draw Him at the first conceivable opportunity. The state- 
ment that God made the plants and animals after their own 
kind is one that Darwin considers will ere long be regarded 
as “a curious illustration of the blunders of preconceived 
opinion. These authors,” says he, “seem no more startled 
at a miraculous act of creation than at an ordinary birth.” 
The true tendency of Darwin*s views has been more clearly 
seen by some of his followers than by himself. “ The first 
living germ granted,” says Carl Vogt, “the process of evolu- 
tion will account for all we see. Man is not a special creation 
produced in a different way and distinct from other animals 
endowed with an individual soul, and animated by the breath 
of God ; on the contrary, man is only the highest product of the 
progressive evolution of animal life springing from the group 
of apes next below him. The theory,” says he, “ is one which 
turns the Creator out of doors, and does not leave the 
smallest room for the agency of such a being.” 
Happily the theory which is thus opposed to the distinct 
teaching of the Word of Truth is one that meets with no 
quarter in some of the highest courts of science. Hay, it is 
the exclamation of one already quoted, the Duke of Argyll, that 
the difficulties of Darwinism are not theological, but scientific. 
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