As we thoroughly grasp the meaning of all this, we see that upon the Darwinian theory it is impossible that any creature zoologically distinct from Man and superior to him should ever at any future time exist upon the earth.  In the regions of unconditional possibility it is open to any one to argue, if he chooses, that such a creature may come to exist; but the Darwinian theory is utterly opposed to any such conclusion.  According to Darwinism, the creation of Man is still the goal toward which Nature tended from the beginning.  Not the production of any higher creature, but the perfecting of Humanity, is to be the glorious consummation of Nature’s long and tedious work.  Thus we suddenly arrive at the conclusion that Man seems now, much more clearly than ever, the chief among God’s creatures.  On the primitive barbaric theory, which Mr. Darwin has swept away, Man was suddenly flung into the world by the miraculous act of some unseen and incalculable Power acting from without; and whatever theology might suppose, no scientific reason could be alleged why the same incalculable Power might not at some future moment, by a similar miracle, thrust upon the scene some mightier creature in whose presence Man would become like a sorry beast of burden.  But he who has mastered the Darwinian theory, he who recognizes the slow and subtle process of evolution as the way in which God makes things come to pass, must take afar higher view.  He sees that in the deadly struggle for existence which has raged throughout countless aeons of time, the whole creation has been groaning and travailing together in order to bring forth that last consummate specimen of God’s handiwork, the Human Soul.

To the creature thus produced through a change in the direction in which natural selection has worked, the earth and most of its living things have become gradually subordinated.  In all the classes of the animal and vegetal worlds many ancient species have become extinct, and many modern species have come into being, through the unchecked working of natural selection, since Man became distinctively human.  But in this respect a change has long been coming over the face of nature.  The destinies of all other living things are more and more dependent upon the will of Man.  It rests with him to determine, to a great degree, what plants and animals shall remain upon the earth and what shall be swept from its surface.  By unconsciously imitating the selective processes of Nature, he long ago wrought many wild species into forms subservient to his needs.  He has created new varieties of fruit and flower and cereal grass, and has reared new breeds of animals to aid him in the work of civilization; until at length he is beginning to acquire a mastery over mechanical and molecular and chemical forces which is doubtless destined in the future to achieve marvellous results whereof today we little dream.  Natural selection itself will by and by occupy a subordinate place in comparison with selection by Man, whose appearance on the earth is thus seen more clearly than ever to have opened an entirely new chapter in the mysterious history of creation.