THE SILURIAN BEACH. 
43 
have been, different in each epoch. And those 
still deeper ideal relations, the plans or structu- 
ral conceptions upon which animals are based, 
are adhered to through all time with a tenacity 
in strange contrast to the perishableness of the 
material forms through which they are ex- 
pressed. 
It is surely a fair question to ask the advocates 
of the transmutation theory, whether they attrib- 
ute to physical laws the discernment that would 
lead them to change the specific features, but to 
respect all those characters by which the higher 
structural combinations of the Animal Kingdom 
are preserved without alteration, — in other 
words, to maintain the organic plan, while con- 
stantly diversifying the mode of expressing it. 
If so, it would perhaps be as well to call such 
laws by another name, since they show all the 
comprehensive wisdom of an intelligent Creator. 
Until they can tell us why certain features of 
animals and plants are permanent under condi- 
tions which, according to their view, have power 
to change certain other features no more perish- 
able or transient in themselves, the supporters of 
the development theory will have failed to sub- 
stantiate their peculiar scientific doctrine. 
But this discussion has led us far away from 
our starting-point, and interrupted our walk 
