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evolution and variation do not depend on pangenesis at all. There may be 
some other cause at work of which we are ignorant ; and although you were 
to show that pangenesis is utterly inadequate and unreasonable, that would 
not prove that evolution must fall to the ground 
The Chairman. — My argument was that the theory of evolution would 
not do, unless it were supplemented by pangenesis, which in point of fact, as 
put forward by Darwin, contradicts his previous theory. 
Mr. Henslow. — Well, but evolution does not even depend on Darwin. 
Evolution is not necessarily Darwinism, although the two words are much 
interchanged. Darwin may have his theory, which generally may be more 
reasonable than any other, because all the other theorists have given theories 
to account for other theories, while Darwin has contented himself with facts, 
of which he does not know the cause. (Hear.) The other theorists got ridiculed 
and laughed at ; but Darwin merely argues from facts — the facts of natural 
selection, of development, of cultivation, and so forth. His theory, therefore, 
does not rest upon any one single fact that you choose to select ; but there is 
an accumulation of evidence from various quarters, and arguments from 
analogy. For my own part, I think evolution is the best theory which has 
yet been propounded ; but I would not go with Darwin and say that the 
hand of God has not prepared it before. With regard to the Fall, I will not 
enter upon that question ; but it has always seemed to me most mysterious 
how nature is affected by that. Take the carnivora : how do you get over 
the difficulty created by the fact that man was not created till long after they 
had been in existence ? If geological evidence is trustworthy, they existed 
long before man lived 
Mr. Reddie. — That is a question. 
Mr. Henslow. — You do not think so ? 
Mr. Reddie. — Not at all. 
Mr. Henslow. — Well, I do. With regard to man himself, I have put in 
a sentence, “ if descended from the quadrumana.” I put that in simply as 
an hypothesis. The words used are so remarkable that I think they have 
the stamp of genuineness — that man was called in by a special creative act. 
But there are rudimentary organs in man ; how do you account for them ? 
As matters stand, evidently man was formed on the same plan as the quad- 
rumana. Whether man was developed from them with the assistance of a 
special creative act or not, no one can say ; but man’s immense powers, 
intellectual and otherwise, place an immense gulf between him and the 
highest ape, and prove his special creation. (Hear.) How rudimentary organs 
came about I cannot undertake to say 
The Chairman. — If you admit that you admit the whole. You admit that 
these rudimentary organs occur in a special creation. 
Mr. Henslow. — I say that there was a special creative act when 
man came in. Those rudimentary organs do, I admit, form a great diffi- 
culty. The existence of those rudimentary organs would point to man’s de- 
velopment, and that is the argument I presume that a thorough Darwinian 
would hold to, but the words of Scripture seem to me to point to some 
