285 
And further,, if growth of offspring exactly like the parents 
could properly be called by some such name,, that would be no 
reason for applying it to new growths of a different kind, 
which the automatic evolutionists really want. Every new 
organ, or ever so small a rudiment of one, is extraordinary at 
first, and a special cause is wanted to produce — and that is to 
create it. That cause may be a law of nature beyond our know- 
ledge, but it wanted making and maintaining no less than 
any other that we do know. 
Darwur’s theory of “ biological evolution ” is this, in his 
own closing words of the Origin of Species: “I view all 
beings, not as special creations, but as lineal descendants of 
some few which lived long before the first bed of the Cambrian 
system was deposited There is grandeur in this view 
of life, with its several powers having been originally breathed 
by the Creator into a few forms, or into one, and that while 
this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of 
gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beau- 
tiful and most wonderful have been, and are, evolved.” In 
short, the ultimate difference between that and the old theory 
is, that Darwin allows only small changes (which are all no 
less creations than if an elephant suddenly came out of an egg, 
or out of the earth), while the old theory allowed creations of 
any size at once. 
The only answer that I have seen to the proposition that 
small changes require a creative power just as much as large 
one is the assertion that some changes are always neces- 
sarily taking place from the change of circumstances, and 
that those only survive, or are continued, which are adapted 
to the new circumstances, while the others die out. But all 
that involves a variety of causes, of which the evolutionists 
give us none. They have to explain why any suitable change 
is ever produced by altered circumstances, such as climate for 
instance ; and, indeed, why any change at all should happen 
of itself. Adaptation means the creation of suitable changes, 
none the less because some others that are not suitable are 
produced also, only to perish in “ the waste of nature.” 
It seems to be admitted too that changes which can hardly 
be called small sometimes appear quite suddenly ; I under- 
stand, though I do not remember the passage, that Darwin 
himself mentions that one branch of a peach-tree occasionally 
produces nectarines, and that there is no intermediate fruit 
known. Certainly each of them is a perfect fruit of its kind, 
and neither can be pronounced superior to the other. And 
yet they are very different. 
VOL. XVII. 
Darwinian 
■ Biological 
Evolution 
X 
