Scholar, Critic, Poet and Christian Gentleman

This book is dedicated by one who
owes to his advice and kindly sympathy
more than can be expressed_



Preface

The great world disaster, ushered in with the dawn of that August
morning in 1914, has already brought revolutionary changes in many
departments of our thinking. But not the least of the surprises awaiting
an amazed world, whenever attention can again be directed to such
subjects, will be the realization that we have now definitely outgrown
many notions in science and philosophy which in the old order of things
were supposed to have been eternally settled.

There are but two theories regarding the origin of our world and of the
various forms of plants and animals upon it, Creation and
Evolution,--the latter assuming many modifications.

The essential idea of the Evolution theory is _uniformity_; that is, it
seeks to show that life in all its various forms and manifestations
probably originated by causes similar to or identical with forces and
processes now prevailing. It teaches the absolute supremacy and the past
continuity of natural law as now observed. It says that the changes now
going on in our modern world have always been in action and that these
present-day natural changes and processes are as much a part of the
origin of things as anything that ever took place in the past. In short,