How to Solve One of the Problems of Science [pp. 787-793]

I 894.] How TO SOLVE ONE OF THE PROBLEMS OF SCIENCE. 787
HOW TO SOLVE ONE OF THE HIGHEST PROBLEMS
OF SCIENCE.
BY WILLIAM SETON, LL.D.
N nothing, perhaps, does our generation differ more
, from the generations that have gone before it
~ than in the view which it takes of animated na ture. There are, no doubt, many persons who
do not yet call themselves aged who never in
their college days heard the word Evolution spoken. All the
different kinds of animals and plants had been, in their eyes,
specially created from the beginning, and the idea that
one organism has developed by slow and imperceptible degrees from another organism, would have seemed to them not
only absurd but heretical. It is true that some scientists had
already questioned the old-time belief in special creations, but
even the genius of Lamarck had made little impression on men's
minds. But to-day all this is changed. In every civilized country not only is natural science the one study to which, more
than to any other, the majority of young collegians are turning
their thoughts, but the professors whose lectures they attend
are, with very few exceptions, upholders of the doctrine of evolution.
Now what, it may be asked, has mainly brought about this
widely different view of Almighty God's work? It is, in our opinion, Darwin's theory of Natural Selection, which gives the first
plausible explanation of how change of species may be effected,
and whether we agree with him or not his hypothesis is most
ingenious, and one which cannot be disproved. Darwin teaches
that more individuals are born than can possibly survive; and
that in the battle for life, which the fauna and flora have been
fighting during the millions of years since their first ancestors
were created, those varieties which possess the smallest advantage of structure, color, or otherwise are preserved, while those
which do not possess any advantages perish; and he also shows
that all organisms vary.in every one of their parts to an
extent quite enough for natural selection to act upon. We
know that in domesticated animals and plants there is marked
variation, and that it is by selecting from varieties to breed