came successive dynasties of mammals; and as the iguanodon gave place to
the great Eocene marsupials, as the mastodon and the sabre-toothed lion
have long since vanished from the scene, so may not Man by and by
disappear to make way for some higher creature, and so on forever? In
such case, why should we regard Man as in any higher sense the object of
Divine care than a pig? Still stronger does the case appear when we
remember that those countless adaptations of means to ends in nature,
which since the time of Voltaire and Paley we have been accustomed to
cite as evidences of creative design, have received at the hands of Mr.
Darwin a very different interpretation. The lobster's powerful claw, the
butterfly's gorgeous tints, the rose's delicious fragrance, the
architectural instinct of the bee, the astonishing structure of the
orchid, are no longer explained as the results of contrivance. That
simple but wasteful process of survival of the fittest, through which
such marvellous things have come into being, has little about it that is
analogous to the ingenuity of human art. The infinite and eternal Power
which is thus revealed in the physical life of the universe seems in
nowise akin to the human soul. The idea of beneficent purpose seems for
the moment to be excluded from nature, and a blind process, known as
Natural Selection, is the deity that slumbers not nor sleeps. Reckless
of good and evil, it brings forth at once the mother's tender love for
her infant and the horrible teeth of the ravening shark, and to its
creative indifference the one is as good as the other.

In spite of these appalling arguments the man of science, urged by the
single-hearted purpose to ascertain the truth, be the consequences what
they may, goes quietly on and finds that the terrible theory must be
adopted; the fact of man's consanguinity with dumb beasts must be
admitted. In reaching this conclusion, the man of science reasons upon
the physical facts within his reach, applying to them the same