Progress there has
been, in a sense. The Creator has placed ever higher forms on the
globe. But all the progress lies in the gaps and distances between
successive forms, not in any advance made, or victory won, by the
species or individual. The most "aspiring ape," if ever there was
such a being, remains but an ape. He must comfort himself with the
thought that, while he and his descendants can never gain an inch,
the gap between himself and the next higher form shall be far
greater than that between himself and the lowest monkey.
And if this has been the history of thousands of other species, why
should it not be true of man also? Who can wonder that many who
accept this theory doubt whether the world is growing any better, or
whether even man will ever be higher and better than he now is?
Would it not be contrary to the whole course of past history, if you
can properly call such a record a history, if he could advance at
all? Now I have no wish to misrepresent this or any honestly
accepted theory, but it appears to me essentially hopeless, a record
not of the progress of life on the globe, but of a succession of
stagnations, of deaths. I can never understand why some very good
and intelligent people still think that the theory of the immediate
creation of each species does more honor to the Creator and his
creation than the theory of evolution.
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