mole, but its hands are, enormously expanded, and the exceedingly long fingers are connected by a soft membrane, making a most serviceable wing. It is not extremely likely, assuming the development theory to be true, that both the mole and the bat sprang from a common ancestor? And was not that ancestor probably a wingless, though not a legless mammal? Now, how came the bat to acquire his wings? Did he attempt to spring into the air and seize a passing insect, and reach out his paws to catch it? And did those paws gradually become enlarged, till, after some generations, they were real wings? But what happened in the meantime to those connecting links whose wings were but partly developed? A bat with wings only half grown would be a helpless creature, and would surely perish. A mole with hands terminating in long, slender fingers, would be helpless, and would perish. There is no middle ground. If the ancestor of the bat was a terrestrial creature, with limbs fitted for walking, then it must have given birth to a full-fledged bat, fitted for flying. There could have been no middle stage, for such a creature would have been helpless, and must have perished. All this applies with equal force to the diversified and often highly complex structure of plants. As the organs of the various plants are now constituted, they most admirably serve their purpose. Given a slight change, an underdevelopment, and the individual would perish. But such underdeveloped stages must have occurred in the history of every life-form on earth, if a change through slow adaptations is to be accepted as a hypothesis to account for their present form. To our mind, this matter of rudimentary structures presents an insuperable obstacle to acceptance of the evolutionary hypothesis even on scientific grounds. CHAPTER SIX. Instinct. How the various instincts of animals, the homing instinct of birds and insects, the building instincts, the migrating instinct, etc., could have been developed though forces working by natural selection or any other law, is a question which has called forth much discussion. It cannot be said that the explanations contained in the pages of Darwin, Romanes, and Spencer are satisfying. The difficulty that remains unsolved is similar to that (already considered) of rudimentary structures. On instinct depends the existence of most animals. According to the theory these instincts have been developed by slow degrees. Hence there must have been a time when these instincts, because not yet completely developed, were useless to the animal. But if useless, the animal must have perished. The strength of this objection to the evolutionary hypothesis will become clear from a brief study of the manner in which animal life is bound up with the proper functioning of instinct.