or are their complexities and perplexities the mere expressions of a
higher law?

A large number of persons practically assume the former position to be
correct. They believe that the writer of the Pentateuch was empowered
and commissioned to teach us scientific as well as other truth, that
the account we find there of the creation of living things is simply
and literally correct, and that anything which seems to contradict it
is, by the nature of the case, false. All the phenomena which have
been detailed are, on this view, the immediate product of a creative
fiat and consequently are out of the domain of science altogether.

Whether this view prove ultimately to be true or false, it is, at any
rate, not at present supported by what is commonly regarded as logical
proof, even if it be capable of discussion by reason; and hence we
consider ourselves at liberty to pass it by, and to turn to those views
which profess to rest on a scientific basis only, and therefore admit of
being argued to their consequences. And we do this with the less
hesitation as it so happens that those persons who are practically
conversant with the facts of the case (plainly a considerable advantage)
have always thought fit to range themselves under the latter category.

The majority of these competent persons have up to the present time
maintained two positions,--the first, that every species is, within
certain defined or definable limits, fixed and incapable of
modification; the second, that every species was originally produced by
a distinct creative act. The second position is obviously incapable of
proof or disproof, the direct operations of the Creator not being
subjects of science; and it must therefore be regarded as a corollary
from the first, the truth or falsehood of which is a matter of evidence.