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of that species exactly corresponds, inasmuch as it 
represents the specific likeness without the individual 
peculiarity. But such a conception in the mind of 
man would have no effect on the operations of nature. 
In the second place, it is possible that the Creator, in 
making all the different species of vertebrates, might have 
created them with reference to a type which He had in 
His own mind, the actual realisation of which took place 
in some cases ; the idea of which, in other cases, exercised 
a restraining influence over creative action, so that the 
greatest skill was required to adapt organs to their 
functions ; and the influence of which is sometimes seen in 
the existence of a reduced and useless part, retained for 
the sake of symmetry. We may dismiss this view from 
our consideration in the present connection, for it has 
been rejected with ridicule by the advocates of Natural 
Selection. 
But this argument of the Darwinian is the argument of 
all advocates of Organic Evolution. It is an argumentum 
ad hominem addressed to a particular kind of theist. It 
says in effect,—If you believe in the fixity of species, if 
you believe that all animals were produced in the course of 
a week of creative energy, if you believe that God had a 
type or pattern in His mind—then you must believe that 
He imposed upon Himself conditions which it is not likely 
that He would impose. Whatever its worth may be, it is 
an argument against the miraculous creation of species 
and their subsequent fixity. But this argument has noth 
ing whatever to say against the possibility of God’s 
foreknowledge of all that was to take place as the result 
of evolutionary processes. The scientific man and the 
scientific theist are agreed that their business is in the 
first place to discover what the actual phenomena of 
nature are ; physical science goes no further, and leaves