WG-19-20. NO EVOLUTION AMONG THE LOWER ANIMALS

20. NO EVOLUTION AMONG THE LOWER ANIMALS THE absence of these marks in every other part of the accessible universe also tends to indicate that the sway of this invisible presiding genius is strictly limited to the affairs of men. It is a very striking fact that there is no evolution in the affairs of other living creatures. For example, and in marked contrast with the evolution of human society, such animals as herd together have developed no changes whatever in the way the herds are formed. The birds build their nests, and the affairs of the ant-colonies and beehives are conducted precisely as they have always been conducted since men began to observe them.

We need have no doubt at all as to our conclusions thus far. Evolution is an undeniable fact in human affairs; and we can see that it continues to operate in our day precisely as it has operated in the past. Thus we have the impor­tant fact that, in the sphere where evolution does actually operate, it has continued to operate. By this fact we have a sure answer to the question which has puzzled evolutionists—namely, Why does organic evolution no longer act in altering the structures of plants and animals, and in other spheres where no trace of its action is now seen? If it ever did so act, surely it should have con­tinued so to do. The answer is that evolution never operated in those spheres, else it would be operating there still; and that all things in those spheres came into existence in some other way than by the operation of the process of evolution.

Another inference which may be drawn at this point is that the affairs of the human race have in some way come under the sway of a ruler, or at least of an impersonal law, who or which does not exercise control over other orders of creation. These humbler orders of living beings perform perfectly, and without experiment or mistake, all the operations needful for their existence and well-being, and for the perpetuation of their species, some of which operations are extremely complex and require for their performance a high degree of technical skill. Man alone blunders in everything that he undertakes. And the difference is just this, that man has departed from God’s plan, while the other created orders have not.