follow decomposition and be otherwise impossible : but, in fact, the reverse is the actual sequence of

events.

That is to say, death ordinarily precedes decomposition, thus showing that life does not depend upon matter any more than the existence of matter depends upon the presence of life. But if life do not inhere in matter then the evolution theory cannot be maintained. There is a "break" and a gap." Any one "break," anywhere, any one gap," however small, is fatal to the evolution hypothesis.

The late Robert Patterson, in his very able book on the "Errors of Evolution," says:

There is no force in nature able to inspire life. On the contrary, all the forces of nature are antagonistic to life, and the struggle for existence, which Mr. Darwin so eloquently describes, is the struggle of life against the powers of nature. Every drop of water conveyed by a plant from the ground to the top of the leaf, every step or motion made by any animal, is a struggle against the force of gravitation. The laws of chemical affinity, appealed to as the great forces in evolving life, operate in exactly the contrary direction; they cause death and decompo

sition when life ceases its resistance. The gastric juice will eat its way through the stomach which secreted it, when that stomach has ceased from the struggle of life. The very familiar illustration of the difficulty of preserving dead vegetables and meats attests the destructive power of the forces of matter if not counteracted by some superior intelligence. Mr. Spencer pompously announces the heat of the sun as the sufficient force originating all life. But the sun might shine on his solutions of smelling salts to all eternity without producing the smallest fungus, unless the seeds were previously there. The forces of inorganic matter can destroy, but cannot possibly impart or originate, life."-Errors of Evolution, p. 193.

XVII. Is EVOLUTION SCIENTIFIC?

THE most trustworthy science, then, shows us that the theory of evolution has to disprove what has been accepted as proved in other departments before it can make itself acceptable. In other words, a great objection to evolution is that it is unscientific, on the authority of some of the most trustworthy scientists.

Let us push aside any difficulty for want of time, and assume room in duration large

enough for anything: shall we then be rid of all difficulty? Let us see. Evolution is supposed to have aid from Mr. Darwin's theory of the origin of species. But it is not a theory; it is merely an hypothesis. "Suppose things were thus, then species must have originated thus." With extraordinary industry and skill Mr. Darwin gathered and stated a vast number of what he believed to be facts; and, if they all be admitted, they show that only by the constant superintendence of human intellect over the application of human industry is it possible to make great varieties of pigeons; but (1), the very moment the human superintendence is withdrawn, the pigeons begin to go back to the original, natural type, domestication never having been able to produce forms of animals that are self-perpetuating; and (2), no skill of domestication and differentiating ever has made any species pass into another species, for instance, any line of doves produce the first eagle.

If the changes in the universe are going forward on the plan of evolution, there must be an advance from the poorer to the better,

from the lower to the higher. But the facts are against this. The planet shows that multitudes of species have degenerated. Even man has degenerated. Is not the first of everything, as a rule, better than most that follows? The phrase "the survival of the fittest" has no scientific support. It is a grim satire on nature, unless evolution teach that the worst is the fittest. When the wheat and the tares are sown in the field, we know which chokes the other. Now, if there be no stays or stops, everything must reach the bottom to which it tends, and evolution provides for no such pause and upward turning caused by the incoming of some force from without. Indeed, whatever proof of improvement and upward movement can be produced is a proof which stands adverse to the evolution hypothesis, because it shows the incoming of something from outside of nature. Such a simple fact as that no grain which now forms food for men, such as corn or wheat, has ever been found in a wild state, but is all the product of cultivation, which means the coming in of a force ab extra; and that such grain would

disappear if the culture were withdrawn for a short time, stands against the hypothesis of evolution.

That we may see how unscientific that hypothesis is, consider that that only is science which is known and capable of proof. Guesses, prophecies, assumptions, count for nothing in this court.

Now go back to the definition given in the beginning of this treatise. Mr. Spencer starts out with the assumption of "a limited mass of homogeneous matter." The grossness of this assumption will be apparent. when you reflect that up to A.D. 1885 there has not been discovered any homogeneous matter in the universe.

If there be such a thing as homogeneous matter, must it not be protoplasm, which is assumed to be the material basis of life? Protoplasm has been carefully examined microscopically by our ablest scientific men, and this is the result. Professor Huxley

says

that all the forms of protoplasm which have yet been examined contain the four elements-carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen-in very complex