Professor TYNDALL:-'I here affirm that no shred of trustworthy experimental testimony exists to prove that life in our day has ever appeared independently of antecedent life.'-Nineteenth Century, March 1878, p. 507. Every attempt made in our day to generate life independently of antecedent life has utterly broken down.' -Fragments of Science, Preface to the 6th edition, p. vi.

Professor HUXLEY:-'Not only is the kind of evidence adduced in favour of abiogenesis [spontaneous generation] logically insufficient to furnish proof of its occurrence, but it may be stated as a well-based induction, that the more careful the investigator, and the more complete his mastery over the endless practical difficulties which surround experimentation on this subject, the more certain are his experiments to give a negative result.' Again, he says: 'The fact is, that at the present moment there is not a shadow of trustworthy direct evidence that abiogenesis does take place, or has taken place, within the historic period during which existence of life on the globe is recorded.'Encyclopædia Britannica; 9th edition, article 'Biology.'

on

(2) On the descent of man from the ape by mere natural evolution :—

Professor VIRCHOW, Berlin:-'You are aware that I am now specially engaged in the study of anthropology, but I am bound to declare that every positive advance which we have made in the province of prehistoric anthropology has actually removed us further from the proof of such a connection [of man with the ape] . . . When we study the fossil man of the quaternary period, who must, of course, have stood comparatively near to our primitive ancestors in the order of descent, or rather of ascent, we find always a man, just such men as are now. . . . The old troglodytes, pile-villagers, and bog-people, prove to be quite a respectable society. They have heads so large that many a living person

would be only too happy to possess such . . . Nay, if we gather together the whole sum of the fossil men hitherto known, and put them parallel with those of the present time, we can decidedly pronounce that there are among living men a much larger number of individuals who show a relatively inferior type than there are among the fossils known up to this time. . . . Not a single fossil skull of an ape or an "ape-man" has yet been found that could really have belonged to a human being. Every addition to the amount of objects, which we have attained as materials for discussion, has removed us farther from the hypothesis propounded.'-Virchow, The Freedom of Science in the Modern State (2nd edition), pp. 60, 62, 63.

His conclusion is: 'WE CANNOT TEACH, WE CANNOT PRONOUNCE IT TO BE A CONQUEST OF SCIENCE, THAT MAN DESCENDS FROM THE APE OR ANY OTHER

ANIMAL.'-Ibid. p. 62. In the Preface (p. vi.), he says: 'With a few individual exceptions, this protest has met with a cordial assent from German naturalists.'

A. RUSSEL WALLACE:-'The few remains yet known of prehistoric man do not indicate any material diminution in the size of the brain-case. A Swiss skull of the stone age, found in the lake dwelling of Meilen, corresponded exactly to that of a Swiss youth of the present day. The celebrated Neanderthal skull had a larger circumference than the average; and its capacity indicating actual mass of brain, is estimated to have been not less than 75 cubic inches, or nearly the average of existing Australian crania. The Engis skull, perhaps the oldest known, and which, according to Sir John Lubbock, "there seems no doubt was really contemporary with the mammoth and the cave-bear," is yet, according to Professor Huxley, "a fair average skull, which might have belonged to a philosopher, or might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage." Of the cave-men of Les Eyzies, who were undoubtedly

contemporary with the reindeer in the south of France, Professor Paul Broca says: "The great capacity of the brain, the development of the frontal region, the fine elliptical form of the anterior part of the profile of the skull, are incontestable characteristics of superiority, such as we are accustomed to meet with in civilised races."—Wallace, Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection, pp. 336 f.

Professor DU BOIS-REYMOND, Berlin :-'At a certain period of the development of life on the globe, an epoch of which we do not know the date, there arose a thing new and hitherto unheard of, a thing as incomprehensible as the essence of matter and force. The thread of our intelligence of nature, which mounts up to that infinitely distant time, is broken, and we find ourselves face to face with an impassable abyss. That new and incomprehensible phenomenon is thought.'-Du BoisReymond, La Revue scientifique, 10 Octobre 1874, p. 341. (3) On the time requisite for the development hypothesis :

'The subject [how long the earth has been habitable by plants and animals such as we see now] has been taken up very carefully within the last few years by Sir William Thomson, and the brief résumé I shall give of his results contains nearly all that is accurately and definitely acquired to science upon the subject. He divides his arguments upon it into three heads. The first is an argument from the internal heat of the earth; the second is from the tidal retardation of the earth's rotation; and the third is from the sun's temperature.

'Each of these arguments is quite independent of the other two, and is-for all tend to something about the same—to the effect that ten millions of years is about the utmost that can be allowed, from the physical point of view, for all the changes that have taken place on the earth's surface since vegetable life of the lowest known form was capable of existing there.

'But I daresay many of you are acquainted with the speculations of Lyell and others, especially of Darwin, who tell us that even for a comparatively brief portion of recent geological history three hundred millions of years will not suffice! We say so much the worse for geology as at present understood by its chief authorities; for physical considerations, from various independent points of view, render it utterly impossible that more than ten or fifteen millions of years can be granted.'-Professor Tait, Recent Advances in Physical Science, pp. 165 ff. Cf. Croll, Climate and Time, p. 355.

NOTE VII. p. 70.

HODGE AND BAXTER IN REGARD TO INSPIRATION.

The Church doctrine of plenary inspiration 'denies that the sacred writers were merely partially inspired; it asserts that they were fully inspired as to all that they teach, whether of doctrine or fact. This of course does not imply that the sacred writers were infallible except for the special purpose for which they were employed. They were not imbued with plenary knowledge. As to all matters of science, philosophy, and history, they stood on the same level with their contemporaries. They were infallible only as teachers, and when acting as the spokesmen of God. Their inspiration no more made them astronomers than it made them agriculturists. Isaiah was infallible in his predictions, although he shared with his countrymen the views then prevalent as to the mechanism of the universe. Paul could not err in anything he taught, although he could not recollect how many persons he had baptized in Corinth.'- Hodge, Systematic Theology, vol. i. p. 165.

'Those men who think that the human imperfections of the writers [of the Bible] do extend further, and may appear in some by-passages of chronology or history which are no proper part of the rule of faith and life, do not hereby destroy the Christian cause; for God might enable His apostles to an infallible recording and preaching of the gospel, even all things necessary to salvation, though He had not made them infallible in every by-passage and circumstance, any more than they were indefectible in life. As for them that say, "I can believe no man in anything who is mistaken in one thing, at least, as infallible," they speak against common sense and reason: for a man may be infallibly acquainted with some things who is not so with all. . . . A lawyer may infallibly tell you whether your cause be good or bad, in the main, who yet may misreport some circumstances in the opening of it. A physician, in his historical observations, may partly err as a historian in some circumstances, and yet be infallible as a physician in some plain cases, which belong directly to his art. I do not believe that any man can prove the least error in the Holy Scripture in any point according to its true intent and meaning; but, if he could, the gospel, as a rule of faith and life, in things necessary to salvation, might nevertheless be proved infallible by all the evidence before given.'-Baxter, The Reasons of the Christian Religion, Part II. c. x., Objection 17. Cf. also The Catechising of Families, c. vi., Q. and A. 11.

NOTE VIII. p. 83.

QUOTATIONS FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT FOUND IN THE FATHERS.

In looking into the early Christian writers for quotations from the New Testament, we must not expect them

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