It will also claim that the present lines, whether on the whole really
or only approximately parallel, sometimes fork or send off branches on
one side or the other, producing new lines, (varieties,) which run for
a while, and for aught we know indefinitely, when not interfered with,
near and approximately parallel to the parent line. This claim it can
establish; and it may also show that these close subsidiary lines may
branch or vary again, and that those branches or varieties which are
best adapted to the existing conditions may be continued, while others
stop or die out. And so we may have the basis of a real _theory_ of
the _diversification_ of species; and here, indeed, there is a real,
though a narrow, established ground to build upon. But, as systems of
organic Nature, both are equally _hypotheses_, are suppositions of
what there is no proof of from experience, assumed in order to account
for the observed phenomena, and supported by such indirect evidence as
can be had. Even when the upholders of the former and more popular
system mix up revelation with scientific discussion,--which we decline
to do,--they by no means thereby render their view other than
hypothetical. Agreeing that plants and animals were produced by
Omnipotent fiat does not exclude the idea of natural order and what we
call secondary causes. The record of the fiat--"Let the earth bring
forth grass, the herb yielding seed," etc., "and it was so"; "let the
earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and
creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was
so"--seems even to imply them.
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