146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ment. We have on the one hand strong grounds for conchiding that 

 the earth was once a molten mass. We now lind it not only swathed 

 by an atmosphere, and covered by a sea, but also crowded with living 

 things. The question is, How were they introduced ? Certainty may 

 be as unattainable here as Bishop Butler held it to be in matters of 

 religion; but in the contemplation of probabilities the thoughtful 

 mind is forced to take a side. The conclusion of Science, which rec- 

 ognizes unbroken causal connection between the past and the present,, 

 would undoubtedly be that the molten earth contained within it ele- 

 ments of life, which gi'ouped themselves into their present forms as 

 the planet cooled. The difficulty and reluctance encountered by thi& 

 conception arise solely from the fact that the theologic conception 

 obtained a prior footing in the human mind. Did the latter depend 

 upon reasoning alone, it could not hold its ground for an hour against 

 its rival. But it is warmed into life and strength by the emotions 

 by associated hopes, fears, and expectations and not only by these, 

 which are more or less mean, but by that loftiness of thought and 

 feeling Avhich lifts its possessor above the atmosphere of self, and 

 which the theologic idea, in its nobler forms, has tlirough ages engen- 

 dered in noble minds. 



Were not man's origin implicated, we should acce23t without a 

 murmur the derivation of animal and vegetable life from what we call 

 inorganic nature. The conclusion of pure intellect points this way 

 and no other. But this purity is troubled by our interests in this life,, 

 and by our hopes and fears regarding the life to come. Reason is 

 traversed by the emotions, anger rising in the weaker heads to the 

 height of ^uggesting that the conapendious shooting of the inquirer 

 would be an act agreeable to God and serviceable to man. But this 

 foolishness is more than neutralized by the sympathy of the wise ; and 

 in England at least, so long as the courtesy which befits an earnest 

 theme is adhered to, such sympathy is ever ready for an honest man. 

 None of us here need shrink from saying all that he has a right to say. 

 We ought, however, to remember that it is not only a band of Jesuits,, 

 weaving their schemes of intellectual slavery, under the innocent 

 guise of " education," that we are opposing. Our foes are to some 

 extent they of our own household, inchxding not only the ignorant 

 and the passionate, but a minority of minds of high calibre and cult- 

 ure, lovers of freedom, moreover, who, though its objective pull be 

 riddled by logic, still find the ethic life of their religion unimpaired. 

 But while such considerations ought to influence the form of our ar- 

 gument, and prevent it from ever slipping out of the region of cour- 

 tesy into that of scorn or abuse, its substance, I think, ought to be 

 maintained and presented in unmitigated strength. 



In the year 1855 the chair of Philosophy in the University of 

 Munich happened to be filled by a Catholic priest of great critical 

 penetration, great learning, and great courage, who bore the brunt of 



