"In tracts of fluent heat began,
The seeming prey of cyclic storms,
The home of seeming random forms,
Till, at the last, arose the man."


And we know, also, that these forms, "seeming random" as they are,
have appeared according to a law which, as far as we can judge, has
been on the whole one of progress, - lower animals (though we
cannot yet say, the lowest) appearing first, and man, the highest
mammal, "the roof and crown of things," one of the latest in the
series. We have no more right, let it be observed, to say that
man, the highest, appeared last, than that the lowest appeared
first. It was probably so, in both cases; but there is as yet no
positive proof of either; and as we know that species of animals
lower than those which already existed appeared again and again
during the various eras, so it is quite possible that they may be
appearing now, and may appear hereafter: and that for every
extinct Dodo or Moa, a new species may be created, to keep up the
equilibrium of the whole. This is but a surmise: but it may be
wise, perhaps, just now, to confess boldly, even to insist on, its
possibility, lest any should fancy, from our unwillingness to allow
it, that there would be ought in it, if proved, contrary to sound
religion.

I am, I must honestly confess, more and more unable to perceive
anything which an orthodox Christian may not hold, in those
physical theories of "evolution," which are gaining more and more