union.* In whatever form it appears, "whether fungus or oak, worm or man," its elements are the same; and when life in it becomes extinct it "is resolved into its mineral and lifeless constituents." † It is admitted, of course, that carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen are lifeless bodies, and that they all exist previous to their union; "but, when they are brought together," says Professor Huxley, "under certain conditions, they give rise to the still more complex body, protoplasm; and this protoplasm exhibits the phenomena of life.”‡ It is a mere dream. If you can find a substantial phoenix, or griffin, or chimera, you may find homogeneous matter. We are told that it is not on this planet, nor anywhere in the solar system, so far as man has been able to discover. Nay, while all along we have been supposing that there might be at least a hatful of it somewhere in the universe, the spectroscope has torn the bottom from Mr. Spencer's definition and spilled all the sense it seemed to have. He must first show, what no man yet has been able to do, that there either is, or has been, homogeneous matter, or surrender his definition of evolution. When the chief apostle of his * Lay Sermons, p. 130. + Ibid., p. 131. Ibid., p. 135. religion cannot define its fundamental doctrine we must decide that he at least cannot prove its truth. When you examine Mr. Huxley's definition you must consign it to the same fate. He assumes what has not been proved, the primitive nebulosity of the universe. He assumes what has not been proved, that the molecules of that original nebulosity possessed forces. He further assumes what has not been proved, that there was mutual interaction between those forces. And he further assumes what has not been proved, that that interaction was according to definite laws. The hypothesis of the "primitive nebulosity of the universe," as Professor Huxley calls it, rests upon the assumption of the gradual cooling of the sun and of all the planets. The Nebular Hypothesis is briefly this: That the space now occupied by the solar system was originally filled by an evenly-diffused mass of nebulous matter, which received a rotary motion. Under the attraction of its parts condensation goes on, accelerating the rotation. Under mechanical laws rings are formed, becoming spheres, and thus the planets and their satellites, moving in the same plane and at proportionate distances, come into being, the central mass, as it contracts, giving off light and heat, and remaining the controlling centre.-Rev. Dr. Drury, Vedder Lectures, 1883. Plainly, to be sure of any increase or decrease of the temperature of a body we must know its present heat-state, and also its former heat-state. We do not know anything of the former. In terms of the thermometer it has been variously given from 1,561° to 5,344,840° Fahrenheit, the former by Pouillet, the latter by Secchi, two famous scientists. Consider the immense difference. It is as if two nautical observers should give the place of the ship, one at the South Pole, and the other at the equator. Who has ever shown us any method of arriving with accuracy at the heat of the sun? And yet we must know that or else we cannot say that the sun is cooling. Men adopt a theory which cannot stand without a certain assumption, and then they make that assumption, although there is not a particle of knowledge to sustain it and they call that-science! Here, then, we rest the case, without having exhausted the evidence. We do not deny the truth of the hypothesis of evolution and have not attempted to prove it false. But we insist that those who bring it forward are bound to prove it true, and they are very Nor do we deny moon is a green far from having done so. the hypothesis that the cheese, nor shall we try to prove it false, but when those who affirm that it is true bring no more proof for its truth than the materialistic scientists produce for evolution, we shall not admire our green-cheese friends when they sneer at men of brains who simply demand satisfactory, rational, scientific proof. Whether the theory of evolution be true or false, it is apparent that at this stage of the discussion, after a century of hard work to sustain it, the only verdict that can be given, a verdict of the truth of which even evolutionists must feel sensible, is the Scotch verdict of Not Proven. PART II. I. BUDDHA, JESUS, AND EVOLUTION. BECAUSE I did not desire to discuss any topic that bore even the semblance of close alliance with the religious sentiment I did not take up the existence of Jesus in human history, a fact that must be just as much considered in forming a cosmic theory as any other fact. If it had been introduced it would have followed the section on "Genius." While the greatest geniuses are rare, so that one might say that there have been not more than a score who have so touched the highest water-mark of power as to leave there the traces which all succeeding generations should read as theirs-there have been those twenty, and evolution has no |