ioo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



tremes. Now, while there is a kind of truth in this adage, yet, as usu- 

 ally understood, I believe it contains a most pernicious error. It is the 

 favorite adage of the timid man the trimmer, the time-server, the 

 politician, the fence-man. Suppose there had been present on this oc- 

 casion one of these fence-philosophers. He would have reasoned thus : 

 " These gentlemen are of equal intelligence, equal veracity, and equal 

 strength (a most important element in making up an opinion for these 

 fence-men) ; the one says the shield is white and the other says it is 

 black ; now, truth lies in the middle : therefore I conclude that it must 

 be a kind of gray or neutral tint, or perhaps a sort of pepper-and-salt.''' 1 

 Do you not observe that of all the crowd he is the only one who has 

 absolutely no truth in him ? No, gentlemen ; truth and rational philoso- 

 phy is not a mere mixture of opposing views truth is not what our 

 English friends might call a philosophic " 'alf-n'alf." It is rather to be 

 sought in a more comprehensive view, which combines and reconciles 

 opposing partial views it is a stereoscopic combination of tico partial 

 surface views into one objective reality. 



So is it, gentlemen^ with many vexed questions ; so is it with the 

 question of origin of species. There are three possible views in regard 

 to the origin of species. The first asserts Divine agency by miraculous 

 creation, and therefore denies any process the second asserts evolution- 

 process, but denies Divine agency ; the third asserts Divine agency by 

 evolution-process. So, also, are there three corresponding views in re- 

 gard to the origin of the individual of you, of me, of each of us. The 

 first is that of the little innocent, who thinks that God made him as he 

 (the little innocent) makes dirt-pies / the second is that of the little 

 hoodlum, who says, " I wasn't made at all, I growed ; " the third is the 

 usual adult belief that we are made by a process of evolution. Do you 

 not observe, then, that in the matter of the origin of species many good 

 theologians and pietists are in the position of the little innocent ? They 

 think that species were made without natural process. On the other 

 hand, most evolutionists are in the position of the little hoodlum ; for 

 they think that species, because they "growed" wern't made at all. But 

 there is a higher and more rational philosophy than either, which holds 

 that the ideas of making and of growing are not inconsistent with each 

 other that evolution does not and cannot destroy the conception of, or 

 the belief in, an intelligent Creator and Author of the cosmos. This 

 view combines and reconciles the two preceding antagonistic views, and 

 is therefore more comprehensive, more rational, and more true. But 

 let us not fail to do justice let us not overlook the fact that the most 

 important and noblest truths are overlooked only by the hoodlum and 

 materialist. Of the two sides of the shield, the little innocent and the 

 pietest sees, at least, the rchiter and more beaulifid. 



The end and mission of science, gentlemen, is not only to discover 

 new truth, but also, and even more distinctively, to give new and more 

 rational form to old truth to transfigure the old into the more glorious 



