282 LAY SERMONS, ADDRESSES^ AND REVIEWS. [xn 



As a question of dialectics, it must be admitted that 

 tins sort of reasoning is not very formidable to those 

 who are not to be frightened by consequences. It is an 

 argumentum ad ignorantiam — take this explanation or 

 be ignorant. But suppose we prefer to admit our igno- 

 rance rather than adopt a hypothesis at variance with 

 all the teachings of Nature \ Or, suppose for a moment 

 we admit the explanation, and then seriously ask our- 

 selves how much the wiser are we ; what does the 

 explanation explain ? Is it any more than a grandilo- 

 quent way of announcing the fact, that we really know 

 nothing about the matter ? A phenomenon is explained 

 when it is shown to be a case of some general law of 

 Nature ; but the supernatural interposition of the Creator 

 can, by the nature of the case, exemplify no law. and if 

 species have really arisen in this way, it is absurd to 

 attempt to discuss their origin. 



Or, lastly, let us ask ourselves whether any amount 

 of evidence which the nature of our faculties permits us 

 to attain, can justify us in asserting that any pheno- 

 menon is out of the reach of natural causation. To this 

 end it is obviously necessary that we should know all 

 the consequences to which all possible combinations, 

 continued through unlimited time, can give rise. If we 

 knew these, and found none competent to originate 

 species, we should have good ground for denying their 

 origin by natural causation. Till we know them, any 

 hypothesis is better than one which involves us in such 

 miserable presumption. 



But the hypothesis of special creation is not only a 

 mere specious mask for our ignorance; its existence in 

 Biology marks the youth and imperfection of the science. 

 For what is the history of every science but the his- 

 tory of the elimination of the notion of creative, or 

 other interferences, with the natural order of the phseno- 



