Faith In Order, Which Is The Basis

Many Years Ago It Was Taught That Plants And Animals Were Composed Of Different Materials: Plants, Of A Chemical Substance Of Three Elements,- Carbon, Hydrogen, And Oxygen; Animals Of One Of Four Elements, Nitrogen Being Added To The Other Three.

The Best Opinion Now Is, That There Are Multitudinous Forms Which Are Not Sufficiently Differentiated To Be Distinctively Either Plant Or Animal, While, As Respects Ordinary Plants And Animals, The Difficulty Of Laying Down A Definition Has Become Far Greater Than Ever Before.

We Have Spoken Of Beings So Low In The Scale That The Individuals Throughout Their Whole Existence Are Not Sufficiently Specialized To Be Distinctively Plant Or Animal: Yet These Are Definite Life In Simpler Shape.

Natural Selection Is Not The Wind Which Propels The Vessel, But The Rudder Which, By Friction, Now On This Side And Now On That, Shapes The Course.

I Accept Extinction As Best Explaining Disjoined Species. I See That The Same Cause Must Have Reduced Many Species Of Great Range To Small, And That It May Have Reduced Large Genera To So Small, And Of Families.