S08 
XXV The facts at present assure us that multitudes of 
species lie close to each other in the visible order of 
Nature. Mr. Darwin however, assumes that there is 
contradiction. ,j er i Ya ti 0I1 0 f the more perfect from the less perfect. 
—Now to the scientific logician this theory in any form is almost 
a self-contradiction, since a cause must needs be adequate to the 
effect. If the lower generate the higher, m what respect was 
it lower ? It may have existed among the lower, but was 
potentially higher. And how its potentiality was acquired in 
the lower group of beings where it was found, would still lead 
to the unsolved question. It is, perhaps, always more con- 
ceivable that vitality from a higher rank may first cast its force 
beneath, and thence re-act in the upper direction. But where 
is the proof of either assumption ? Anyhow a careful thinker 
will perceive that the passage of life upwards would imply a 
new and special element of power in the individual of a 
seeming lower class that led the ascent. So that, logically, the 
theory of “evolution from below” answers itself, and rather 
establishes the truth it sought to deny. The utmost that any 
evolutionist could say would be, that m a lower groove of 
being some individual appeared who, from some cause un- 
explained, was potentially higher than the rest, and proved it 
bv rising to the higher sphere — a fact which confirms ratne 
than opposes the original distinction of the grooves, tue 
SP Perhaps? too, Inother part of this notion, viz., that the beings 
of a lower order, i.e. countless differing individuals, remain the 
same, till an abnormal individual of a higher power- somehow 
appears, assumes more than philosophy recognizes at present ; 
for we have no right to say that there would be no degenera- 
tion to a lower rank, even in the same species ; «P® rl ® uc ® 
rather points in that direction, perhaps, when all the tacts 
come to be tabulated. . . _ l 
There is no doubt something imposing m the arrangemei 
of his subject which Mr. Darwin adopts, and it may lead 
either the unsuspicious or willingly credulous reader to suppose 
. a more exhaustive induction of facts than we tind. 
becom‘1 pbfi£ Yet all his facts might be arranged, and his book 
as a set of naturalists’ observations be re-wntten 
them. entire, from the point of view of the Christian 
Philosophy. The chapter on Homological structure might 
have been reasonably enlarged with advantage. It ^yjt have 
been of use when afterwards the writer speaks of the liability 
to variation in certain occasional and rudimentary struc- 
tures ; and we should there also have been glad * ' 
of what Archbishop Sumner regards as a tenden y 
