Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/43

 crossings are quite unlimited; yet varieties have their limitation at the beginning of a new genus, for a raspberry can never be developed from a strawberry, nor a grape from a blueberry.

Development and Evolution are diametrically opposed. The existence of the law of development forbids the possibility of a contemporaneous law of Evolution. Experiment in any field, and the results will be conclusive. Select a variance in pheasants. Cultivation of that variance, howsoever far it may be carried, results in only a pheasant. If the variance be an unfavorable one, the results will be a less perfect pheasant. It will have the same appetites, the same habits, with a slight variation perchance, and the same nature. It will not be a baldheaded eagle nor a bat. If the variance be a favorable one, in the end there will result a pheasant; but it will be no nearer a swan or a bird of paradise. It will be only a more perfect pheasant. Herein is the positive disprovement of the possibility of the existence of the laws of Evolution, for the favoring of a variance that may seem to point to a higher class does not change the species, but develops it. It does not form a new species, but intensifies