(2) That there are forms which cannot be accounted for on the evolutionist supposition, that they were gradually obtained by a series of small changes slowly progressing towards a perfect structure.  They would be of no use at all unless produced at once and complete.

(3) That natural selection, as apart from a Divine Designer, altogether fails to account for beauty, as distinguished from mere brilliancy or conspicuousness, in nature.  Whereas, if we suppose the existence of a beneficent Creator, who has moral objects in view, and cares for the delight and the improvement of His creatures,[1] and looking to the known effects on the mind of beauty in art and in nature, the existence is at once and beyond all cavil explained.

[Footnote 1:  “He hath made everything beautiful in his time” (Eccles. iii.  II).]

(4) That we have positive evidence against uncontrolled evolution (uncontrolled by set plan and design i.e.) and a strong presumption in favour of the existence of created types; so that evolution proceeds towards these types by aid of natural laws and forces working together (in a way that our limited faculties necessarily fail to grasp adequately);[1] and so that, the type once reached, a certain degree of variation, but never transgression of the type, is possible.  Further, that on this supposition we are able to account for some of the unexplained facts in evolutionary history, such as reversion and the sterility of hybrids; and to see why there are gaps which cannot be bridged over, and which by extreme theorists are only feebly accounted for on the supposition that as discovery progresses they will be bridged over some day.

[Footnote 1:  “Also He hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end” (Eccles. iii II).]

(5) Lastly, that there is no possibility of giving time enough on any possible theory of the world’s existence, for the evolution of all species, unless some reasonable theory of creative arrangement and design be admitted.

The great objection—­the descent of man and the introduction of reason, consciousness, and so forth, into the world, will then form two separate chapters, concluding the first division of my subject.

There is one point which the reader may be surprised to see omitted.  It is, that if these slow changes were always going on, why is not the present world full of, and the fossil-bearing rocks also abounding in, intermediate forms, creatures which are on their way to being something else?  But there are reasons to be given on this ground which make the subject a less definite one for treatment.  It is said, for example, that in the fossil rocks we have only such scanty and fragmentary records, that it is not possible to draw a complete inference, and that there is always the possibility of fresh discoveries