126 THE FOUNDATIONS OF ZOOLOGY 



to the contrary, it may be true ; and we must ask whether, if 

 true, it is any substitute for science ; although we must remember 

 that there is no end to the things which, while no one treats 

 them seriously, may nevertheless be true. 



All the fancies of the poets, which do not involve a con- 

 tradiction, may be true; but while anything which is not ab- 

 surd may be good poetry, science is founded on the rock of 

 evidence. 



Many have found the opinion that all nature is conscious and 

 endowed with volition, that the morning stars sing together, that 

 the waters laugh, that trees talk, and that the wind bloweth 

 where it listeth, worthy of belief ; and it is clear that we can- 

 not oppose any belief of this sort by evidence, or convert the 

 sailor who believes that the wind obeys his whistle, by asking for 

 proof. 



The path of scientific progress is strewn with beliefs which 

 have been abandoned for lack of evidence, as burst shells strew 

 a battlefield, and it is our boast that they are abandoned, and 

 not lugged along the line of march. As a shell which has failed 

 to burst is, now and then, picked up on some old battlefield, by 

 some one on whom experience is thrown away, and is exploded 

 by him in the bosom of his approving family, with disastrous 

 results, so one of these abandoned beliefs may be dug up by 

 the head of some intellectual family, to the confusion of those 

 who follow him as their leader. 



So far as the philosophy of evolution involves belief that 

 nature is determinate, or due to a necessary law of universal 

 progress or evolution, it seems to me to be utterly unsupported 

 by evidence, and totally unscientific. 



This system of philosophy teaches that, for purposes of illus- 

 tration, our universe may be compared to an unstable, homoge- 

 neous, saturated solution; which remains unchanged so long as 

 it is undisturbed, but crystallizes when shaken. The process of 

 evolution must be supposed to start with a disturbance or shock. 

 Something, inherent in the nature of things or outside, must press 

 the button ; but matter and its properties do all the rest, just as 

 crystallization follows from the properties of the solution. Even 

 if all this is granted, it is not apparent that the mind of the 



