one ancestor, but that one animal might result from a whole hive of
bees. And this arbitrary and erroneous assumption was accepted by
the learned world with still greater and more universal sympathy.
This assumption was arbitrary, because no one has ever seen how one
organism is made from another, and therefore the hypothesis as to
the origin of species will always remain an hypothesis, and not an
experimental fact. And this hypothesis was also erroneous, because
the decision of the question as to the origin of species--that they
have originated, in consequence of the law of heredity and fitness,
in the course of an interminably long time--is no solution at all,
but merely a re-statement of the problem in a new form.

According to Moses' solution of the question (in the dispute with
whom the entire significance of this theory lies), it appears that
the diversity of the species of living creatures proceeded according
to the will of God, and according to His almighty power; but
according to the theory of evolution, it appears that the difference
between living creatures arose by chance, and on account of varying
conditions of heredity and surroundings, through an endless period
of time. The theory of evolution, to speak in simple language,
merely asserts, that by chance, in an incalculably long period of
time, out of any thing you like, any thing else that you like may
develop.

This is no answer to the problem. And the same problem is
differently expressed: instead of will, chance is offered, and the
co-efficient of the eternal is transposed from the power to the
time. But this fresh assertion strengthened Comte's assertion.
And, moreover, according to the ingenuous confession of the founder
of Darwin's theory himself, his idea was aroused in him by the law