CHAPTER III.. The Evolution of Species.

THE EVOLUTION OF SPECIES.

This is Evolution's great field of labor. It was this which mainly occupied Darwin's labors and is the basis of the whole sweeping theory. This suggested man's animal origin and all that follows as to man's history and religion and civilization. So that this is the basal part of Evolution. Yet against this fundamental argument, two great charges are made and admitted: First, not a single case of evolution of species is known, and, second, no law or force by which such changes could take place has been discovered. We will consider these two fatal defects.

NOT A SINGLE INSTANCE OF EVOLUTION IS KNOWN.

In support of this assertion we might quote the admissions of nearly every evolutionary writer. Prof. Winchell writes upon this point as follows:

"The great stubborn fact which every form of the theory encounters at the very outset is, that notwithstanding variations, we are ignorant of a single instance of the derivation of one good species from another. The world has been ransacked for an example, and occasionally it has seemed for a time as if an instance had been found of the origination of a genuine species by so-called natural agencies, but we only give utterance to the admissions of all the recent advocates of derivation theories, when we announce that the long-sought experimentum crucis has not been discovered." (The Doctrine of Evolution, p. 54.)

Prof. Conn, in one of the most recent works upon Evolution, says: "It is true enough that naturalists have been unable to find a single unquestioned instance of a new species.... It will be admitted at the outset on all sides, that no unquestioned instance has been observed of one species being derived from another.... It is therefore impossible at present to place the question beyond dispute." (Evolution of To-day, p. 23.)

Here then is a fatal defect. The world has been ransacked for evidence, the museums are full of specimens, the secrets of nature have been explored in every land, the minutest creatures discovered and analyzed. We have the remains of animals and plants of many kinds thousands of years old, such as the mummied remains from Egypt, and yet not a single instance of the change Evolution asserts has ever been known! Yet this change of species is the fundamental argument of Evolution. On this rests its theory of the origin of man and all that flows from that assertion, and this basal assertion is absolutely without an actual instance of fact.

The changes in certain species such as roses, primroses, tomatoes, pigeons and dogs, are not new species, but only varieties, having none of the traits of species, easily intermingling, propagating, and readily reverting to their original forms, changes which true species are not susceptible of. Darwin admitted that the continued fertility of these varieties was one of his greatest difficulties. One of the definitions of species is that they will not interbreed and propagate. So that hybrids are sterile. "After its kind," is the primal law of nature, and as Dr. Jesse B. Thomas says, "The stubborn mule still blocks the way of Evolution."

NO CAUSE OF EVOLUTION IS KNOWN.

Evolution is not a force. There is no power or cause which is known as Evolution. The word simply describes the order in which things have been supposed to come. We must draw a clear line of distinction between Cause and Order of Appearance. There is a certain order in the succession of living things as they came, but what caused that order is the very question at issue. The Duke of Argyle warns against confusing these when he says, "Evolution puts forward a visible order of phenomena as a complete and all-sufficient account of its own origin and cause." (Theories of Darwin.)

The absence of an agreed cause is admitted by evolutionists. Huxley says, "The great need of Evolution is a theory of derivation." (Man's Place in Nature.) Darwin admits, "Our ignorance of the laws of derivation is profound." (Descent of Man.) "The laws governing inheritance are for the most part unknown." (Origin of Species.) Prof. Conn in Evolution of To-day, says, "No two scientists are agreed as to what is the cause of the supposed changes of species." (p. 337.) Prof. Clodd traces it to the protoplasm which forms the germ and ends his exhaustive treatise by saying the cause is still unknown. (Method of Evolution.)

Darwin's theory was Natural Selection. It is this which is technically called "Darwinism," although some writers apply that name to the general subject of Evolution. Natural selection is the theory that inasmuch as minute variations occur in the struggle of living things for existence, the variations which would prove favorable to the welfare of the animal would be transmitted to its progeny and be increased and so, in many generations, the accumulating effects, aided by climate, food, sexual selection, and other causes, would amount to a new species. Prof. Conn says of this theory, "Natural selection is almost universally acknowledged as insufficient to meet the facts of nature, since many facts of life cannot be explained by it." (p. 243.)

Mr. Huxley said long before: "After much consideration, and with assuredly no bias against Mr. Darwin's views, it is our clear conviction that as the evidence now stands it is not absolutely proved that a group of animals, having all the characteristics exhibited by species in nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether natural or artificial." (Lay Sermons, 295.)

The theories as to what produced the supposed changes are as many as the writers on Evolution. Prof. Conn says, "All agreement disappears. Each thinker has his own views." And adds, "Thus far we have seen no indication of the manner in which this evolution has been manifested." (p. 20.) Prof. J. Arthur Thomson, lecturer on zoology in the School of Medicine, Edinburgh, said: "Unless we can give some theory of the origin of variations we have no material for further consideration. Unfortunately we are very ignorant about the whole matter." The various writers ascribe the changes to food, climate, sexual selection, extraordinary births, isolation and many other supposed causes. All these have been in turn combatted by other evolutionist writers, and the war goes on and has produced libraries of volumes. It is around this that the conflict rages and the war is a merry one.

HOW EVOLUTION ORIGINATED SPECIES.

It is when Evolution gives the particulars of these changes that it becomes especially interesting. We will, by way of lighting up the examination, consider a few of the stories it tells us as to how things came.

Spencer tells us how the backbone came to be, for the primitive animals had none. Prof. Conn quotes his account as follows: "He thinks the segmentation, the division of the spinal column into vertebrae, arose as the result of strains. Originally the vertebrate was unsegmented, but in bending its body from side to side in locomotion through the water, its spinal column became divided by the action of simple mechanical force." (Evolution of To-day, p. 65.) Thus what we usually consider a serious calamity, the breaking of one's backbone, became one of the greatest blessings, for what would we be without flexible backs, with which to follow the meanderings of Evolution?

Evolution also tells us how legs originated. The earliest animals were without legs. Some animal in this legless state found on its body some slight excrescences or warts, which aided materially its progress as it wiggled along, and thus it acquired the habit of using these convenient warts. This habit it transmitted to its posterity and they increased the habit until the excrescences, lengthened and strengthened by use, became legs of a rudimentary kind, which by further use developed a system of bones and muscles and nerves and joints such as we have ourselves.

Spencer's account of the origin of quadrupeds is that the earliest animals propagated by dividing into two parts, and in some of these the division was not perfectly made, and so the animal had duplicated ends, each of which had legs, forming finally the present quadruple arrangement.

Eyes originated from some animal having pigment spots or freckles on the sides of its head, which, turned to the sun, agreeably affected the animal so that it acquired the habit of turning that side of its head to the sun, and its posterity inherited the same habit and passed it on to still other generations. The pigment spot acquired sensitiveness by use and in time a nerve developed which was the beginning of the eye. From this incipient eye came the present wonderful combination of lenses, nerves and muscles, all so accurately adjusted that, of the sixteen possible adjustments of each part, only once in a hundred thousand times would they come together, as they now are, by chance.

Land animals began thus, according to Evolution: In a time of drought some water animals, stranded by the receding waters, were obliged thenceforth to adopt land manners and methods of living. Although, strangely, the whale by the same cause was forced to the water, for it was once a land animal, but in a season of drought was obliged to seek the water's edge for the scant remaining herbage, and, finding the water agreeable, remained there and its posterity also, and finally, the teeth and legs no longer needed, became decadent and abortive as we see them now. Darwin inferred the history of the whale's marine career from seeing a bear swimming in a pool and catching insects with its wide-open mouth as it so skimmed the water's surface.

The same drought produced another and wonderful change, for it is to this that the giraffe owes his long legs and neck. The herbage on the lower branches withering up, he was obliged to stretch his neck and legs to reach the higher branches. This increased, as all such changes increased, in his posterity, and finally after many generations produced the present immense reaching powers of the giraffe. So that the same drought deprived the whale of his legs and conferred them upon the giraffe.

The mere recital of these speculations will be enough for all who have not surrendered their judgment to the keeping of others. It seems scarcely necessary to assure readers unacquainted with the theory, that this is not exaggeration or caricature. We have simply abbreviated, and rendered into untechnical language, the accounts of evolutionary writers given in all seriousness and with high-sounding scientific terms. Any such work will give many specimens of similar accounts. Reply seems unnecessary, yet must be made.

1. All this is pure speculation. Not a single such change is known, or has been observed.

2. All is based on Natural Selection, which evolutionists have themselves discarded; yet for want of any other theory they are constantly obliged to fall back upon it.

3. Such acquired traits are not transmitted, as Prof. Thomson of Edinborough, tells us. Only characteristics inherited, or congenital in the fertilized egg cell, are so transmitted. (Outlines of Zoology, p. 66.) The "sports" such as the white robins and crows occasionally seen, disappear as individuals and do not propagate as distinct types.

Let us pause here to contemplate the spectacle of a theory, which its own advocates admit is unproven, and which has been opposed by some of the greatest minds, a theory which has not a single direct fact of evidence, and has no way of accounting for the changes which it declares have taken place; such a theory accepted as the basis of every science, the foundation of a universal philosophy, taught in educational institutions to youth as if demonstrated, demanding immediate and universal submission, undertaking to revise Scripture, to revolutionize theology, and to prescribe what we must do to be saved and to save others! Surely it is safe to hesitate before such demands.

We will not discount the great service done humanity in the patient research in the realms of nature by laborious students. All this should be given weight. We also admit the value of a theory as a means to the ascertaining of truth. But we cannot consent that the vast interests affected by Evolution shall be decided by "the balancings of probabilities," or the mooted value of a theory. This is no place for theories, which must be held tentatively, if at all. This is a matter which affects the belief and lives and hopes of millions, their welfare here and hereafter. Religion is too sacred to be made a shuttlecock tossed about in the arena of intellectual amusement.

Sir J. William Dawson said of some writers and their theories: "To launch a clever and startling fallacy, which will float a week and stir up a hard fight, seems as great a triumph as the discovery of an important fact or law; and the honest student is distracted with the multitude of doctrines and hustled aside by the crowd of ambitious groundlings." (Story of the Earth and Man, 313.)

Evolution has much to say for itself, but, as we see, it is all of the nature of circumstantial evidence. This seems to the non-scientific mind as strange for anything called science, which we have been accustomed to think means something known or proven. We have been accustomed to see cases thrown out of court when presenting no evidence and to fare badly in general on mere circumstantial evidence. However, as Evolution is so persistent for a hearing, we must examine what it has to advance for our consideration. Its arguments are drawn from Geology, Classification, Distribution of Plants and Animals, Morphology and Embryology.

THE ARGUMENT FROM GEOLOGY.

The argument from this science is that the fossils appear in the strata of the earth in advancing order, the simplest first, and more complex afterwards. The assumption is that the higher came from the lower, by a chain of infinitesimal changes, through a long series of ages. Now the facts are not as claimed. We will show this later. But admitting that they are, the argument is wanting.

1. All this is pure assumption. No such changes are known in existing species to have ever taken place, and the assumption that these changes took place in geologic ages is wholly unwarranted. If it cannot be predicated of the animals we see and know, how can it be asserted of a period millenniums ago?

2. Mere succession is not evolution. The coming in orderly succession is evidence of some plan but not necessarily of evolution. An intelligent Creator would work in the same way, especially if he had intelligent beings to instruct thereby, at the time or afterwards.

3. Evolution in comparing the successive comings of the rocky strata and the fossil creatures, compares two kinds of things that cannot be made analogous. Rocks are not produced by evolution, the higher growing out of the lower, as is claimed of species. That certain species appeared with the lower rocks and strata, and higher orders with later rocks and strata only proves of one, as of the other, an advancing order of production but tells nothing of the cause of either.

4. We are supported in these doubts as to the value of Evolution's argument from Geology by the fact, that many of the most eminent geologists deny any proof of evolution in their chosen science.

Sir Roderick Murchison said, "I know as much of nature in her geologic ages as any living man, and I fearlessly say that our geologic record does not afford one syllable of evidence in support of Darwin's theory." The great Swiss geologist, Joachim Barrande states, "One cannot conceive why in all rocks whatever and in all countries upon the two continents, all relics of the intervening types should have vanished.... The discordances are so numerous and pronounced, that the composition of the real fauna seems to have been calculated by design for contradicting everything which the theories (of Evolution) teach us respecting the first appearance and primitive evolution of the forms of life upon the earth." (Quoted by Winchell, in Doctrine of Evolution, p. 142.)

Prof. Conn, an evolutionist, admits the presence of many facts disclosed by geology which oppose the theory of Evolution. He says, "In the earliest records geology discloses, we find not a few generalized types but well differentiated forms, nearly all the sub-kingdoms as they now exist, five-sixths of our orders, nearly an equal proportion of sub-orders, a great many families and some of our present species. All this is a surprise and an unexplained problem." Such a result, he says, is not what Evolution would lead us to expect. All the important classes of animals made their appearance without warning. (Evolution of To-day, pp. 6, 100, 103, 118.)

Haeckel writes, "We cannot shut our eyes to the fact that various groups have from the time of their first appearance, burst out into an exuberant growth of modification of form, size and members, with all possible, and one might almost say, impossible shapes, and they have done this within a comparatively short time, after which they have died out not less rapidly." (Last Link, p. 144.)

The testimony of geology, as adduced by geologists and even by evolutionists, is that it does not sustain the claims of Evolution. Species existed in present form from the earliest times. Geologic species came in suddenly and went out suddenly. Some of the simplest remain unchanged through all earth's transformations to the present time. (Dr. Robert Patterson, Errors of Evolution, p. 221.) The great fossil cemeteries show that the living creatures fell in serried ranks, overtaken by cataclysms, in every act of life. Le Conte tries to explain this by saying that there were "paroxysmal" eras, but what the paroxysms were, or whence they came, he does not say. The whole testimony is against Evolution and reverts to proof of the Bible story of Creation. Professor Adam Sedgwick says: "At succeeding epochs, new tribes of beings were called into existence, not merely as the progeny of those that had appeared before them, but as new and living proofs of creative interference."

THE ARGUMENT FROM CLASSIFICATION OF SPECIES.

This is one of the strong points of Evolution. It is claimed that plants and animals can be so classified in an ascending order that it is evident the higher came out of the lower. We object as follows:

1. There is no classification agreed upon by scientists. This comes largely from want of agreement as to what a species is. Scientists differ widely and radically. Spencer presents a review of all these schemes of classification and ends by saying, "It is absurd to attempt a definite scheme of relationship." His own plan of the scheme he says is the figure of a "laurel bush squashed flat by a descending plane." (Principles of Biology, p. 389.) This agrees with his statement as to the absurdity of such schemes. Some arrange the whole in a continuous straight line from the lowest up.

Darwin thought the whole came from half a dozen germinal forms. Where these came from he did not say. Dr. J. Clark Ridpath said, "The eagle was always an eagle, the man always man. Every species of living organism has I believe come up by a like process from its own primordial germ." (Arena, June, 1879.) Haeckel insists that the theory demands but a single primeval germ as the ancestor of all living things. He presented a tree, showing twenty or more stages between primeval protoplasm and man, but this has been now rejected by evolutionists. Prof. D. Kerfoot Schults represents the classification as follows: "If all the animals that have ever existed on the earth be represented by a tree, those now existing on the earth will be represented by the topmost twigs and leaves, and the extinct forms will be represented by the main trunk and branches." (First Book on Organic Evolution, p. xiv.)

But the source of all, the primeval protoplasm, is wanting. The missing primeval germ or germs leaves the tree without a root, and Prof. Conn tells that even the sub-kingdoms are not united by fossils. Spencer admits that not a single species has been traced to its source or its family tree completed, and even the ancestors of our living species are wanting.

Prof. Dana admitted as follows, "If ever the links (upon which the doctrine of Evolution depends) had an actual existence, their disappearance without a trace left behind is altogether inexplicable." Here then is a tree without root or trunk or branches, and having only the tips of outer twigs and leaves, in other words, a phantom tree, a fit representation of the theory for which it stands.

The present orders of plants and animals give a strong argument against Evolution. It has been seen that Succession is not Evolution. The mere coming of animals in orderly succession shows only plan, but the means of executing that plan is not shown thereby. But further, while in the geologic ages there was Succession, here in our age is Simultaneousness of species, two very different and contradictory phenomena. Why has Succession ceased? Why have not the higher orders pushed the lower out, as in the geologic ages, if Evolution was the cause? Yet here they all exist quietly together as if they knew nothing of Evolution or its requirements.

Nor have any such changes occurred in thousands of years, as the mummied remains of cats and crocodiles and ibises in Egypt show. Surely 4,000 years would show some evolution if there had been such a thing; but it is not seen in all the 4,000 years, or even in the more distant period since primeval man existed, for we have the remains of animals found with man in his early history. Out of 98 species, 57 are the same as we have to-day unchanged, and still others, as the lingula, the same as in ages past. Thus Evolution's trusted argument from Classification utterly fails of demonstration.

DISTRIBUTION OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS.

The distribution of plants and animals is another favorite argument of this theory. Certain animals are said to be found only in certain regions, the bison only in North America, the kangaroo only in Australia, the armadillo only in Mexico. Evolution triumphantly asks, Were they created only in these places? We now simply remark that difficulties as to Creation do not prove Evolution. Evolution says the ancestors of these came from other parts ages ago and by long isolation and environment became what they are.

Facts again are against the theory. Huxley himself says that in the neighborhood of Oxford are animal remains like those of Australia; that Britain was once connected with the continent, and so these animals passed over. The same is true he says of the isolated fauna of New Zealand and South America. (Address in Daily Post, March 27, 1871.)

This argument might be used against Evolution as well as the previous arguments. Two islands in the Pacific, only fifteen miles apart, have the animals of Asia in one and of Australia in the other. One of the Bermudas has lizards like those of Africa and another like those of America. In fact it is evident that animals and plants have scattered widely.

THE MORPHOLOGICAL ARGUMENT.

The comparative study of plants and animals presents another argument for Evolution. It is found, for example, that there is a similarity of plan in the fin of the fish, the wing of the bird, the flipper of the whale, the leg of the animal and the arm of the man. So also in a measure with all other corresponding parts. This Evolution says, shows that all these animals are genetically connected and all came from the same ancestors.

Huxley himself replies to this argument in these words, "No amount of purely morphological evidence can suffice to prove that things came into existence in one way rather than another." (Study of Zoology, p. 86.) Another great scientist, Prof. Quatrefages, professor of anthropology in the Museum of Natural Sciences, Paris, writes on this as follows: "Without leaving domain of facts, and only judging from what we know, we can say, that morphology itself justifies the conclusion that one species has never produced another by derivation." Prof. Conn admits, after going through the whole subject with the latest facts, that unless some further explanation can be found, homology does not prove descent. (Evolution of To-day, p. 76.)

This resemblance of parts is just what we should expect in things originating from one intelligent operator, whether Creator or manufacturer. It is found in every factory. The wheel is the same in the wheelbarrow, the cart, carriage and locomotive. In fact, uniformity of plan proves unity in the cause, and not the diversity of chance causes claimed by Evolution. If Evolution were true, there would be as much diversity among organs as there is among the forms of organs. If the operation of chance conditions has resulted in radical changes in the forms of organs, why then is there not this similar diversity among the organs themselves? Evolution has no reply. Creation has such reply; God is one and his plan one. Why should not the forms of all these things be alike, seeing they are to live in the same climates, eat the same food and propagate in the same manner?

The rudimentary, abortive and discarded parts found in some animals form one of the strongest arguments Evolution advances. The favorite instance it presents is found in the horse. The horse walks on one toe and has splints further up the leg, which they tell us are the remains of the other toes, and the callosities on the leg are the remains of thumbs. The remains have been found of an animal as large as a dog which resembles the horse and has two toes, and another older animal, as large as a fox, which has four toes. Putting these side by side, Evolution calls them all horses, and says the one-toed animal came from the two-toed, and he from the four-toed, and that this proves the evolution of the horse from the Eohippus (Old Horse) as it is called.

1. Bearing in mind that this conclusion is pure assumption, and only inference at best, let us remark that it violates the primal law of evolution laid down by Spencer, that of evolution from the simple to the complex. It should have shown first the one-toed horse, then his development into a two-toed animal, and so on up to a horse having five toes. This would be evolution. As it is, we see the opposite of evolution, degradation, which often occurs in nature, and we see few if any instances of any subsequent restoration to primal conditions.

2. Besides all this, that most necessary thing to a good horse, a pedigree, is wanting. The connecting links are all missing in his ancestral tree. For the ancestors of that first of horses are unknown. But he is not alone in this, for even his owner has the same sad want of proven descent, as we will see later. Just how the horse lost his appendages, and why he dropped toe after toe in this extraordinary manner the story leaves untold.

3. But another great objection exists. It takes time to breed horses. It required all of the Tertiary period to produce the one-toed animal from the four-toed ancestor and much longer time was required to develop him from a totally different animal, where more than a mere question of toes comes in. For we have to face the difficulty, and the time necessary, to develop a good horse, say from an alligator, and the still greater task of producing him from an animal without toes at all, or even legs, or anything to hang legs on, and simply a bag of jelly-like substance, which the evolutionist assures us was the ancestor of all horses and their riders. If it appears to the reader that life is too short for such business we can say the geologist agrees with him, for he tells us the age of the old earth itself was not one tenth long enough to produce Evolution's horses, and still less their riders.

Another instance of Evolution's proofs is the swim-bladder of fishes. This Evolution sometimes states is an incipient lung, and that the fish learned in a drought to breathe air. Sometimes, as the need of the theory demands, the swim-bladder is claimed as the relic of a discarded lung. These however are two different and opposing claims. Either as a prophecy or a relic the swim-bladder is fatal to the claims of Evolution. If it is an incipient lung, then here is intention, which Evolution rejects. If a relic, here is retrogression, the opposite of evolution. The abortive organ is one of the difficulties of the theory which Darwin admitted, and Prof. Conn tells us, is not yet answered. Prof. Huxley said, "Either these rudiments are of no use to the animal, in which case they ought to have disappeared, or they are of some use to the animal, in which case they are arguments for teleology." (Darwinism, p. 151.)

THE ARGUMENT FROM EMBRYOLOGY.

Evolution derives its greatest argument from the study of the embryo. It makes three claims. First, that the germ of everything, plant and animal, is the same, neither chemical analysis nor the microscope showing any difference. If therefore, such vast variety could come from origins so alike, why could not all we see come from a similar origin, the primitive animal, which was also such a simple cell? Second, in the growth of the embryo it recapitulates the ancestral history of that particular organism. Third, all this when compared with the geologic record, and the present orders of living things as classified, presents the full succession of the forms of life, the one supplying what the other lacks.

These claims must be examined separately.

1. The claim that the germs of all living things are alike is not true. The resemblance is only superficial. Protoplasm, of which the germ is composed, differs and is not homogeneous material. That which builds the muscles is one kind, and that which builds brain and nerves is entirely different. Prof. Clodd tells us it is not a chemical compound but a mechanism. Nor could the germs be alike. For the plant breathes carbon, the animal oxygen. The one oxidizes, the other deoxidizes. There are still greater and deeper differences.

Tyndall says, "Under the most homogeneous material, there lie structural energies of such complexity, that we must question whether we have the mental elements with which to grapple with them.... The most trained and disciplined imagination retires in bewilderment from the problem. In that realm, inaccessible to everything but mind, the wonders of Creation are wrought out.... Here is determined the germ and afterwards the complete organization." (Fragments of Science, p. 153.) So that these cells or germs, which appear so alike, contain each in itself the entire plan and life of the coming creature, to the color of a feather, the trick of a hunting dog and the smile and dimples of a child.

2. The second claim that the course of each embryo traverses its ancestral history, is not nearly so vociferously made as some years ago. Prof. A. Agassiz writes, "Anything beyond a general parallelism is hopeless." Prof. Conn admits "Embryology alone is not a safe guide, and only when verified by the fossils can it be relied upon. It seldom gives a true history.... The parallel is largely a delusion.... It often gives a false history." (Evolution of To-day, pp. 125, 134, 137, 150.) Prof. Thomson writes, "Recapitulation is due to no dead hands of the past, but to physiological conditions which we are unable to discover." (Outline of Zoology, p. 63.) He also says that the young mammal was never like a worm, a fish, or reptile. It was at the most like the young of these in their various stages. So far from the course of all being alike, Baer says he can tell the difference between the embryo of the common fowl and duck on the second day. (Principles of Biology, p. 1.) So far as this claim holds good, it forms an argument against evolution. For here is a goal or ideal to which all things strive. This is intention, and plan and purpose, all of which is opposed to the main idea of Evolution. It is in line with Creation.

3. The culminating argument for Evolution is given by arranging in ascending classification the geologic orders of life (which we have seen do not appear as Evolution demands), and placing alongside of these the classification of present animals (which we have seen is not agreed upon, and is as diverse as the writers themselves), and then laying alongside of these two artificial arrangements, the embryonic recital (which is now doubted and is often false to the past history), and triumphantly pointing to the three-fold combination. The gaps geology shows are thus filled by present forms and what both lack, by the embryonic recital.

Here are compared three things which radically differ. The geologic record shows progress from lower to higher, although not that complete nor unvarying record necessary to the theory, while the present orders of life exist simultaneously. Both show the existence of separate things having no individual connection. The embryo is a single individual, designed from its conception on a predetermined plan, animated by internal forces, and limited to a certain end and life. It is as Dawson says, a "closed series." The worlds of living and fossil creatures consist of myriads of individuals, under many widely different conditions, and aimed at widely different ends and lives. The two are contradictory for the uses of Evolution.

What we do see in these three facts are three marks of personal intelligence. In embryonic growth we see the plan of production. In the coming of the fossil creatures we see the progress of the plan in historical appearance. In the present display of nature we see the ultimate purpose of the whole. It all forms one great consistent plan and bears all the marks of personal and creative work.

So that summing up the argument from comparison of the three facts, the geologic order, the present classification, and the embryonic growth, we find in the first absolute separation of species, in the second no genetic connection as already shown under that argument, and in the third different phenomena having no points in common with the other two. The whole argument then fails of conclusion and reverts as the former do, to proof against Evolution.

FACTS OPPOSING EVOLUTION OF SPECIES.

A theory to be proven must meet the facts and account for them. The theory in question fails lamentably in this. There are countless facts not only unaccounted for but diametrically opposed to it and antagonizing it. We cite some of these:

1. Degeneration in nature. Nature shows a constant tendency downward. Prof. E. D. Cope, an eminent evolutionist, writes: "The retrogradation in nature is as well or nearly as well established as evolution." The wild varieties of plants and animals are far inferior to the cultivated kinds. The older species are far superior to the present. The saber-toothed tiger is far superior to the present animal. So also is the Mammoth as compared with the elephant. Plants show degeneration in colors. The order of superiority is from yellow, the lowest, to white, pink, red, purple and blue, the highest. When they drop from blue to yellow, it is degeneration. Some now having green flowers once had colored blossoms. Progress is not seen to be upward in the flowers. So also parasitism is degeneration both in plants and animals. The course of nature is not, as it has not been, constant development upward. The scripture statement "The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain," describes accurately the condition of nature (Ro. 8:22.)

2. Continued unchanged species for ages. The crustacea, for example in Lake Tanganyika, Africa, remain as the receding ocean left them ages ago.

3. Species instead of increasing in number have decreased. There were 500 species of trilobites. They have all disappeared. There were 900 species of ammonites; all are gone. Of the 450 species of nautilus, only three remain. Indeed whole families have become obliterated. All this is antagonistic to Evolution.

4. Species continue the same under the most diverse environments. Environment is claimed as a cause of the changes demanded by Evolution. But the same species exist in the most diverse regions, e. g., mosquitoes, whales and oaks.

5. Adaptation of one species to another. Darwin says that a single case of the adaptation of one species to another would be fatal to his theory. Yet he himself gives the data for hundreds of such adaptations. He adduces the fact that a hundred head of red clover produced 2,700 seeds. A similar number protected from insects produced none. The fertilization of plants by insects is well known. The Smyrna fig is said to owe its value to its fertilization by the piercing of an insect. Some of these insects have been introduced into California for that purpose. There is an orchid which can be fertilized only by an insect falling into a cup of liquid which the flower has, and escaping through a side opening in which it touches the pollen.

Dr. Andrew Wilson writes: The colors of flowers--nay, even the little splashes of a hue or tint seen on a petal--are intended to attract insects that they may carry off the fertilizing dust, or pollen, to other flowers. It is to this end also that your flowers are many of them sweet-scented. The perfume is another kind of invitation to the insect world. The honey they secrete forms a third attraction--the most practical of all.

6. Complex adjustments of nature. Evolution in vain attempts to account for the wonderful complex adjustments we see in nature, such as the mimicry of animals and plants; the walking stick so closely resembles a twig that it deceives the closest observer. The withered leaf butterfly, with spots and wrinkles, is exactly like the thing it imitates. This is true also of the leaf butterfly and of another which exactly resembles a bird's dropping. Evolution cannot account for the ventriloquism of insects, such as the cricket and tree toad; the battery of the electric eel; the beauty of insects and fish and shells and birds and flowers, especially the harmony of their colors. Edible insects are plainly colored, the poisonous kinds highly colored. Some butterflies have "scare-heads" on their wings, exactly resembling an owl's head, and other insects have similar frightful appearances which they thrust out when attacked. All this tells of design and interest and often has the appearance of humor in the creation of these numerous creatures.

7. The mathematical adjustments of nature are as exact as the multiplication table. Illustrations of this are the accuracy of the orbits of the heavenly bodies and the law of gravitation. The growth of the cell proceeds on geometrical progression in the division of parts into 2, 4, 8, 16, etc. The climbing plants form their coils with mathematical accuracy and proportion. The proportions in which chemicals will mix is mathematically fixed.

Prof. Tyndall thus calls our attention to crystallization: "By permitting alum to crystallize in this slow way we obtain these perfect octahedrons; by allowing carbonate of lime to crystallize, nature produces these beautiful rhomboids; when silica crystallizes we have formed the hexagonal prisms capped at the end by pyramids; by allowing saltpeter to crystallize, we have these prismatic masses, and when carbon crystallizes we have the diamond." (Fragments of Science, p. 357.) "Looking at it mentally we see the molecules [of sulphate of soda] like disciplined squadrons under a governing eye, arranging themselves into battalions, gathering around distinct centers and forming themselves into distinct solid masses, which after a time assume the visible shape of the crystal now held in my hand. Here then is an architect at work, who makes no chips nor din, and who is now building the particles into crystals similar in shape to these beautiful masses we see upon the table." (Belfast Address.)

8. The structure of living things shows the true principles of architecture. A Mr. McLaughlin, a noted Scotch mathematician, tried by mathematical calculation to ascertain the shape of a building which would contain the most room with least material and yet embody the greatest architectural strength in its retaining walls. After many laborious calculations, he found after he had arrived at a conclusion that the honey bee had long before given the same plan of structure in its cell. The human skull is a true dome, and the spinal column a true pillar. The ribs of the ship are copied from the fish, the yacht from the duck, and its deep fin from the fish.

See "Number in Nature," Hastings, Boston, for further illustrations of this.

Evolution pretends to account for every one of these facts by chance changes, extending through countless ages as has already been shown in its amazing account of the origin of legs, eyes, backbones and other members. Surely this is an appeal to credulity! The faith of the Christian is sometimes taxed but what shall we say of the faith of the evolutionist? Which is more credible, the simple account of miraculous creation or this long, involved and absolutely unseen and unknown process?

9. The age of the earth. Prof. George Frederick Wright, the geologist, tells us that geologic time is not one-hundredth part as long as it was supposed to be fifty years ago, and the popular writers who glibly talk of the antiquity of man are behind the times and ignorant of the new light which as a flood has come from geology.

See Man in the Glacial Period, by Prof. Geo. Frederick Wright.

Summing up the case, Prof. Francis M. Balfour tells us: "All these facts that fall under our observation contradict the crude ideas of those so-called naturalists, who state that one species can be transmitted into another in the course of generations." So also Sir David Brewster declares: "We have absolute proof of the immutability of species, whether we search for it in historic or geologic times."

Dr. Etheridge, the famous English authority on fossils, says: "Nine-tenths of the talk of evolutionists is sheer nonsense, not founded on observation and wholly unsupported by fact. Men adopt a theory and then strain their facts to support it. I read all their books, but they make no impression on my belief in the stability of species. Some men are ready to regard you as a fool if you do not go with them in all their vagaries, but this museum is full of proofs of the utter falsity of their views."