6.
_Equus_--Post-Pliocene.]
Mr. Mivart remarks, "There are abundant instances to prove that
considerable modifications may suddenly develop themselves, either due
to external conditions or to obscure internal causes in the organisms
which exhibit them.[1]" If it is not so, granted to the full the
imperfection of the Geologic record, but remembering the cases where we
_do_ find intermediate forms; we ask why should they not be preserved in
other cases? If they ever existed we should surely see _more_ changing
forms; not only such as are more or less uncertainly divided species,
but whole orders running one into another. No evidence exists to show
that any bird has gradually passed into an animal, nor a carnivorous
beast become ruminant, or _vice versa._
[Footnote 1: P. 112] [Transcriber's note: Chapter VIII]
The analogy of changes that are known will not bear extension enough to
prove, even probably, any such change.
Surely if our conclusion in favour of a Divine Design to be attained,
and a Providential Intelligence directing the laws of development, is no
more than a belief, it is a probable and reasonable belief: it certainly
meets facts and allows place for difficulties in a way far more
satisfactory than the opposite belief which rejects _all_ but
"secondary" and purely "natural" causes.
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