7 z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



If the views now advanced are correct, many, perhaps most, of 

 our existing savages are the successors of higher races ; and their 

 arts, often showing a wonderful similarity in distant continents, may 

 have been derived from a common source among more civilized peoples. 



I must now conclude this very imperfect sketch of a few of the 

 offshoots from the great tree of biological study. It will, perhaps, 

 be thought by some that my remarks have tended to the depreciation 

 of our science, by hinting at imperfections in our knowledge and 

 errors in our theories, where more enthusiastic students see nothing 

 but established truths. But I trust that I may have conveyed to 

 many of my hearers a different impression. I have endeavored to 

 show that even in what are usually considered the more trivial and 

 superficial characters presented by natural objects, a whole field of 

 new inquiry is opened up to us by the study of distribution and local 

 conditions. And as regards man, I have endeavored to fix your at- 

 tention on a class of facts which indicate that the course of his devel- 

 opment has been far less direct and simple than has hitherto been 

 supposed ; and that, instead of resembling a single tide with its ad- 

 vancing and receding ripples, it must rather be compared to the prog- 

 ress from neap to spring tides, both the rise and the depression being 

 comparatively greater as the waters of true civilization slowly ad- 

 vance toward the highest level they can reach. 



And if we are thus led to believe that our present knowledge of 

 Nature is somewhat less complete than we have been accustomed to 

 consider it, this is only what we might expect ; for, however great 

 may have been the intellectual triumphs of the nineteenth century, 

 we can hardly think so highly of its achievements as to imagine that, 

 in somewhat less than twenty years, we have passed from complete 

 ignorance to almost perfect knowledge on two such vast and complex 

 subjects as the origin of species and the antiquity of man. 



-- 



THE SO-CALLED "CONFLICT OF SCIENCE AND RE- 

 LIGION." \ 



By Principal J. W. DAWSON, 



OF MOGILL UNIVERSITY. 



IT may be objected that, by the introduction of a cosmogony, the 

 Bible exposes itself to a conflict with science, and that thereby 

 injury results both to science and to religion. This is a grave charge, 

 and one that evidently has had much weight with many minds, since 

 it has been the subject of entire treatises designed to illustrate the 

 history of this conflict or to explain its nature. The revelation of 



1 Extract from a work preparing for publication. 



