So much, then, for the argument from geographical distribution--the many facts of crucial importance which it affords almost resembling so many experiments devised by Nature to prove the falsity of the special creation hypothesis. For now, let it in conclusion be observed, that there is no _physiological_ reason why animals and plants of the different characters observed should inhabit different continents, islands, seas, and so forth. As Darwin observes, "there is hardly a climate or condition in the Old World which cannot be paralleled in the New ... and yet how widely different are their living productions." And that it is not the suitability of organisms to the areas which they inhabit which has determined their creation upon those areas, is conclusively proved by the effects of the artificial transportation of species by man. For in such cases it frequently happens that the imported species thrives quite as well in its new as in its old home, and indeed often supplants the native species. As the Maoris say,--"As the white man's rat has driven away the native rat, so the European fly has driven away our fly, so the clover kills our fern, and so will the Maori himself disappear before the white man." Upon the whole then we are driven to the conclusion, that if the special creation theory is true, the various plants and animals have not been placed in the various habitats which they occupy with any reference to the suitability of these habitats to the organisations of these particular plants and animals. So that, considering all the evidence under the head of geographical distribution, I think we are driven to the yet further conclusion, that if the special creation theory is true, the only principle which appears to have been consistently followed in the geographical deposition of species, is the principle of so depositing them as in all cases to make it appear that the supposition of their having been thus deposited is not merely a highly dubious one, but one which, on the face of it, is conspicuously absurd. V. THE ARGUMENT FROM EMBRYOLOGY.