proved by the effects of the artificial transportation of
species by man. For in such cases it frequently happens that the
imported species thrives quite as well in its new as in its old home,
and indeed often supplants the native species. As the Maoris say,--"As
the white man's rat has driven away the native rat, so the European fly
has driven away our fly, so the clover kills our fern, and so will the
Maori himself disappear before the white man."

Upon the whole then we are driven to the conclusion, that if the special
creation theory is true, the various plants and animals have not been
placed in the various habitats which they occupy with any reference to
the suitability of these habitats to the organisations of these
particular plants and animals. So that, considering all the evidence
under the head of geographical distribution, I think we are driven to
the yet further conclusion, that if the special creation theory is true,
the only principle which appears to have been consistently followed in
the geographical deposition of species, is the principle of so
depositing them as in all cases to make it appear that the supposition
of their having been thus deposited is not merely a highly dubious one,
but one which, on the face of it, is conspicuously absurd.

V.

THE ARGUMENT FROM EMBRYOLOGY.

There is still another important line of evidence which we cannot afford
to overlook; I mean the argument from embryology. To economise space, I
shall not explain the considerations which obviously lead to the
anticipation that, if the theory of descent by inheritance is true, the
life history of the individual ought to constitute a sort of condensed
epitome of the whole history of its descent. But taking this
anticipation for granted, as it is fully realised by the facts of
embryology, it follows that the science of embryology affords perhaps
the strongest of all the strong arguments in favour of evolution. From
the nature of the case, however, the evidence under this head requires
special training to appreciate; so I will merely observe, in general
terms, that the higher animals almost invariably pass through the same
embryological stages as the lower ones, up to the time when the higher
animal begins to assume its higher characters. Thus, for instance, to
take the case of the highest animal, man, his development begins from a
speck of living matter similar to that from which the development of a
plant begins. And