THE CHAIN OF SPECIES. 317 



We shall expect these new iconoclasts next to make war upon our 

 nursery-rhymes. We cannot doubt they will soon insist upon calling 

 on the babies to announce to them that there is no such person as 

 Mother Goose ; or bring up syllogisms in mood and figure to over- 

 throw the dogma of Santa Glaus. The sophomores are tiot confined 

 to the lower classes in our colleges ! Truly our age may be de- 

 scribed as a post Santa Glaus period — the age of our first pair of pan- 

 taloons. A little out of mere infancy and thoughtless trust, and not 

 yet arrived at clear rational and moral ideas — not yet reached the 

 " years which bring the philosophic mind." We are in a betwixt and 

 between condition when we still eat our Ghristmas candy with child- 

 ish gusto, but begin to suspect shrewdly that papa and mamma had 

 something to do with filling the stockings. We do not exactly knoiv, 

 but our very superstition and doubt drive us to endeavor to find argu- 

 ments to combat the story which once filled our childish imaginations 

 with delight. 



There is one point, then, we may set ourselves easy upon, and 

 claim reconciliation with the rest of the world : There is no such 

 dogma as that of special creations, announced as a systematic article 

 of faith by any religious authority ; nor philosophically discussed and 

 contended for by any theologian worthy of the name. A few unAvary 

 ones, like Hugh Miller, more skilled in rocks than in the theology in 

 which he thought he believed, may, now that the question is raised, 

 have confounded the Genesis of Species with the more general idea of 

 Greation ; and may have followed their antagonists into blunder after 

 blunder. 



It is no reply to this position to point out the fact that eminent 

 religious teachers, such as Balmez, or even St. Augustine, at times 

 spoke of the creation of species. For that matter, it is not unphilo- 

 sophical to speak of the creation of individuals, and that with the in- 

 strumentality of immediate parents before our eyes. But, granting 

 these to be mistakes of said doctors of theology, nothing is concluded 

 thereby. For even our lawyers in the ordinary practice of the courts 

 will tell you that obiter dicta of a judge decide no law. Innumerable 

 instances occur in their daily practice when the judges, declaring and 

 announcing correctly the general principles of law, yet make the most 

 absurd and illogical application to particular facts and cases, and 

 that even on points actually before the court ; much more upon ques- 

 tions only incidentally brought in upon their own motion. Hence the 

 general rule of logic in such matters : that general rules take prece- 

 dence of particular applications. 



The same rule applies here : for it is fact that this question, exact- 

 ly as we now put it, never was before the court until formally raised 

 in this plea of evolution. 



But, to go back through the literature of the case : From very re- 

 mote periods, even of Greek philosophy, discriminating analysis is 



