PROOFS . OF EVOLUTION. 
65 
accomplished what it would have taken Natural 
Selection thousands of years to do. By following 
the method of Nature man has become the 
originator of higher forms — a conscious factor 
of Evolution. 
Reversion says that the two kingdoms of 
life are full of antagonisms—that ebb and flow 
are in the heart of all things—that strong and 
stubborn Heredity has a master—environment. 
Heredity never originates. It merely holds and 
perpetuates. If the surroundings are more favor¬ 
able for return to the parent form than to the 
maintenance of the derived form, the organism 
will go back to the former. Life-forms may go 
onward or backward according to the demands of 
adaptation. But the final result is progress—it 
is Evolution. 
Geographical Distribution furnishes evidence of 
the strongest kind for the case of Evolution. It 
explains the wide diversity of animals and plants 
on the earth, that they have sprung from common 
sources, and have become scattered by migration 
and other causes. The wider the separation of 
islands the greater the variation of organic types 
from their kindred on the mainland. These facts 
