THE TEST OF SCIENCE. 77 



is nothing to be said. Those animals are related so. Our 

 science is transformed like magic by the mere substitution of 

 the word ' affinity ' for ' parentage,' and we have got an expla- 

 nation of everything. You bring down the whole animal 

 creation, from the simplest form, to man, as the head of it, and 

 all that is done by external influences merely; there is no 

 Creator in the matter." 



But then, looking at these genealogical tables critically, I saw 

 there was something to be said. Science tests every statement 

 critically. It is not by talking and crying against a doctrine, 

 that you overturn it, because special pleading can be carried far 

 for a good as well as for a bad cause ; and for a bad cause 

 sometimes better than for a good cause ; because there is much 

 to be said in order to make it appear plausible. Therefore, 

 special pleading will not do ; and I am not going to enter into 

 an argument against the transmutation theory, believing it would 

 be of no use. It would neither restrain those who are now in it $ 

 nor prevent those who have a tendency that way from going 

 into it ; nor would it correct any false statement. I am going 

 to look at these genealogical trees ; and I have already exam- 

 ined them very critically. They represent the natural affinity 

 among animals, and if affinity is the synonomous expression for 

 common descent, they give us the true mode of development, 

 the true successive descent of animals from one another. But 

 geology is also a branch of human knowledge, a branch which 

 has already ascertained a certain amount of facts, and among 

 these facts stand very prominently those which bear upon the 

 time at which the different types of the animal kingdom and of 

 the vegetable kingdom have been called into existence. "We 

 know now that there was a time when there existed no quad- 

 rupeds ; we know now there was a time when there existed no 

 monkeys : we know there was a time, prior to that, when no 

 animals of a lower type existed ; and therefore we know the 

 chronology of the animal kingdom, and of the vegetable king- 

 dom tolerably well, as far as fossil remains — that is, remains of 

 animals and plants, which arc buried in the strata forming the 

 crust of our earth — are concerned. As far as they have been 

 gathered, we know, from the positions which they occupy in the 

 beds, what is their chronology. Understand me, when I speak 

 of their chronology, I do not pretend to say that we know how 



