as Dr. Elam quietly says, "As a psychological study it
is interesting to observe how many things are deemed impossible to the
infinite wisdom and power (which by the terms of the supposition,
presided over the arrangements of our world) which are perfectly clear
and comprehensible when considered as the result of blind chance and the
operation of mechanical causes only." Omitting for lack of space his
keen analysis of Huxley's claim of the evidence of evolution from the
orchippus to the modern horse, we follow our author from his array of
what is not proved to what is actually taught by geology. We quote:

"THE SUCCESSION OF FORMS OF LIFE ON OUR GLOBE IS DEMONSTRABLY NOT SUCH
AS OUGHT TO BE THE CASE ON THE THEORY OF EVOLUTION." It was not the small
and feeble species or most generalized forms that first appeared,
either among mollusks, fish, reptiles or mammalia. We look in vain now
for the representatives of the gigantic fishes of the Old Red Sandstone.
And where are the mighty reptile tyrants of air, earth and water of the
Oolite? * * * These races appeared in the plenitude of their development
and power; and, as their dynasty grew old, it was not that the race was
improved or preserved in consequence, but they dwindled, and were, so to
speak, degraded, as if to make room in the economy of nature for their
successors.

Next follows a closely linked argument that will not bear abridgement,
showing the physical improbability that man, a walking animal, was
descended from a climbing one, and the deplorable consequences which
obliterate free will and necessitate the secularization of morals, as
elaborated by Prof. Huxley's friend, Mr. Herbert Spencer. This part of
the subject has a special interest to Americans, since the work in which
Mr. Spencer's views are inculcated has been introduced as a manual in
one of our oldest colleges, but its reproduction would widely lengthen
our article. It is sufficient to say that Dr. Elam concludes that Mr.
Spencer's doctrine, that "actions are completely right only when,
besides being conducive to future happiness, they are immediately
pleasurable," would justify him in concealing any injury done by him to
a friend's scientific apparatus, provided he could attribute it to the
weather, or the intrusion of a dog.

Such, in brief, are the points of an essay which, as a whole, is one of
the most brilliant responses that the declarations of leading
evolutionists have called forth. Of cour