NOTES. (.7 



have to regard him as '' the flower of all the ages," 

 bursting from the great stream of life which has 

 flowed on through countless epochs with one increas- 

 ing purpose, rather than as an isolated, miraculous 

 being, put together abnormally from elemental clay, 

 and cut ofl" by such portentous origin from his 

 fellow animals, and from that gracious Nature to 

 whom he yearns with filial instinct, knowing her, 

 in spite of fables, to be his dear mother. 



A certain number of thoughtful persons admit 

 the development of man's body by natural processes 

 from ape-like ancestry, but believe in the non-natural 

 intervention o-f a Creator at a certain definite stage in 

 that development, in order to introduce into the 

 animal which was at that moment a man-like ape, 

 something termed *' a conscious soul," in virtue of 

 which he became an ape-like man. It appears to 

 me perfectly legitimate and harmless for individuals 

 to make such an assumption if their particular form 

 of philosophy or of religion requires it. Such an 

 assumption does not in any way traverse the infer- 

 ences from facts to which Darwinism leads us ; at 

 the same time zoological science does not, and cannot 

 be expected to, give any support to such an assump- 

 tion. The gratuitous and harmless nature of the 

 assumption so far as zoological science is concerned, 

 and accordingly the baselessness of the hostility to 

 Darwinism of those who choose to make it, may be 

 seen by the consideration of a parallel series of facts 



F 2 



