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.

This Substance, Which Is Manifold In Its Forms And Protean In Its Transformations, Has, In Its State Of Living Matter, One Physiological Name Which Has Become Familiar, That Of Protoplasm.

In Short, The Animal And Vegetable Lines, Diverging Widely Above, Join Below In A Loop.

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.

We May Take It To Be The Accepted Idea That The Mosaic Books Were Not Handed Down To Us For Our Instruction In Scientific Knowledge, And That It Is Our Duty To Ground Our Scientific Beliefs Upon Observation And Inference, Unmixed With Considerations Of A Different Order.