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at the same life-giving force is concerned in the production of specific and generic forms. [Illustration: 185. Female Stylops.] Who can explain the origin of the sexes? What is the cause that determines that one individual in a brood of Stylops, for example (Fig. 184, male; Fig. 185, grub-like female in the body of its host), shall be but a grub, living as a parasite in the body of its host, while its fellow shall be winged and as free in its actions as the most highly organized insect? It is no less mysterious, because it daily occurs before our eyes. So perhaps none the less mysterious, and no more discordant with known natural laws may the law that governs the origin of species seem to those who come after us. Certainly the present attempts to discover that law, however fatuitous they may seem to many, are neither illogical, nor, judging by the impetus already given to biology, or the science of life, labor altogether spent in vain. The theory of evolution is a powerful tool, when judiciously used, that must eventually wrest many a secret from the grasp of nature. But whether true or unproved, the theory of evolution in some shape has actually been adopted by the large proportion of naturalists, who find it indispensable in their researches, and it will be used until found inadequate to explain facts. Notwithstanding the present distrust, and even fear, with which it is received by many, we doubt not but that in comparatively few years all will acknowledge that the theory of evolution will be to biology what the nebular hypothesis is to geology, or the atomic theory is to chemistry. While the evolution theory is as yet imperfect, and many objections, some seemingly insuperable, can be raised against it, it should be borne in mind that the nebular hypothesis is still comparatively crude and unsatisfactory, though indispensable as a working theory to the geologist; and in chemistry, though the atomic theory may not be satisfactorily demonstrated to some minds until an atom is actually brought to sight, it is yet invaluable in research. Many short sighted persons complain that such a theory sets in the back-ground the idea of a personal Creator; but minds no less devout, and perhaps a trifle more thoughtful, see the hand of a Creator not less in the evolution of plants and animals from preexistent forms, through natural laws, than in the evolution of a summer's shower, through the laws discovered by the meteor
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