Before proceeding farther it will be necessary to exhibit more in detail the exact character of the question we have to discuss. According to the celebrated "Formula" of Mr. Herbert Spencer--"Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion; during which the matter passes from a relatively indefinite, incoherent homogeneity, to a relatively definite, coherent heterogeneity; and during which the contained motion undergoes a parallel transformation." It would be interesting to know what idea this definition conveys to many of those who are in the habit of quoting it, but, so far as organic Evolution is concerned, it must mean that whereas in the earlier and lower forms of life one organ performed many different functions in an imperfect manner, evolutionary development has gradually produced higher forms, in which each function has its special organ, by which it is more perfectly discharged. As an extreme instance of the former condition, the Hydra has but two organs, an outside which respires, and an inside which digests. If it be turned inside out these functions are reversed; the skin becoming the stomach, and the stomach the skin. Thus Evolution has been an ascending process from the lower to the higher, from the less to the more organized. Such, it must be added, has undoubtedly been the course of life. Amongst plants and animals alike, it began with lower and simpler forms, after which succeeded in due order others more developed and elaborately organized, the order in which they came upon the scene being much the same as that in which we should naturally arrange their specimens in a museum. Thus in the vegetable kingdom, first came such growths as sea-weeds and fungi, followed by ferns and club-mosses,--yews and pines,--and so through grasses, canes, and palms, to the highest group in which are included our forest trees and the bulk of our garden flowers. In like manner, the animal series,--to mention only leading groups of which evidence is found,--starting with almost structureless _Protozoa_, followed by such forms as starfish and sponges, worms, molluscs and crustaceans, has advanced to vertebrate creatures--fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals,--and finally to man. Thus, in a quite intelligible sense, there has certainly been Evolution, or development,--that is to say, an orderly progression from lower types to higher, throughout the history of life on earth, from its commencement to the present time. But, this is not the point. Was such Evolution or development _genetic_? Was it wrought by descent with modification of form from form? _That_ is what we have to enquire. If this has not been so, there has been no Evolution in the sense intended by Evolutionists. According to their highest authority, Mr. Herbert Spencer, Evolution means "the production of all organic forms by the accumulation of modifications and of divergences by the addition of differences to differences."