The interesting problem which underlies Mr. Darwin's theories is the answer to the question: _How did the different species of organic beings on the earth originate?_ We find ourselves in the midst of an endless variety of organic beings, animals and plants; we see ourselves, so far as regards the entire physical part of our being, in relationship with this organic world--especially with the organization and physical functions of the animal body. The organic individuals come and go. They originate by being begotten by and born of individuals of the same kind, or they spring up through the formation of germs and buds; and they produce in the same way new individuals, that resemble them in all essential characteristics. Like always begets like, so far as our observations go. But not only the individuals, but even the species to which they belong, must have originated at some definite period of time--and, indeed, as geology tells us, not all at once, but in a long series, which stretched through immeasurable epochs of the earth's history. Thus we come face to face with the question, already put, which we can now formulate more {24} precisely: _How did the first individuals of each organic species come into existence?_ No human being ever has observed, nor ever could observe, the origination of a new species, because man, as it seems, did not appear on the earth until all the other organisms were in existence. For this reason, the scientists for a long time thought it unprofitable to occupy themselves with this question; and even in our time a great many of them declare the question to be absolutely insolvable, and every attempt at answering it to be an unjustifiable use of hypotheses. But the impulse toward investigation admits of no limitation so long as there is any probability of extending its field of action. Especially in the province of nature, so many things which could not be discovered by mere observation have been traced indirectly, and so many important and established facts have been added to our stores of knowledge, by first starting from hypothetical premises, that man has again and again endeavored to approximate an answer to the question of the origin of species by taking the indirect course of hypothesis and induction, whenever the direct way of observation did not lead to any result. Religion of course gives a solution to the problem by stating that the species have been originated by the creative act of God. It is wrong to say that this solution is opposed to the above-mentioned impulse toward investigation; for this solution suffices for religion, whether a natural progress in the origination of species be established or not. For, to the believer in religion, the whole universe, with all its objective phenomena and growth, is the work of God as well as the individuals of the already existing species; and a {25} closer acquaintance with the manner of their origin is not only no disturbance to his ground of belief, but, on the