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For already there existed in the secluded work-room of an English naturalist, a manuscript volume and a portfolio of notes which might have sufficed, if given publicity, to shatter the entire structure of the special-creation hypothesis. The naturalist who, by dint of long and patient effort, had constructed this powder-mine of facts was Charles Robert Darwin, grandson of the author of Zoonomia.
And so, despite the scientific advances along many lines at the middle of the century, the idea of the transmutability of organic races had no such prominence, either in scientific or unscientific circles, as it had acquired fifty years before. Special creation held the day, seemingly unopposed. But even at this time the fancied security of the special-creation hypothesis was by no means real.
I do not say that Paley committed this error expressly, but merely that if it had not been for his pre-formed conviction as to the truth of the special-creation theory, he would probably not have written his "Natural Theology." Thus let us take a case of his own choosing, and the one which is adduced by him as typical of "the application of the argument."
On the other hand, the special-creation hypothesis is shown to be not even a thinkable hypothesis, and, while thus intellectually illusive, to have moral implications irreconcilable with the professed beliefs of those who hold it. Passing from the evidence that Evolution has taken place to the question How has it taken place? Mr.
The third and final part of the first volume of the "Principles of Biology" deals with the speculation commonly known as "the development hypothesis," and considers its a priori and a posteriori evidences. The inductive evidences for the evolutionary hypothesis, as contra-distinguished from the special-creation hypothesis, are dealt with in four chapters.
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