OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 437 



made, but more work done, in science. But so happy a result is 

 hardly to be expected. Scientific men, as well as others, have all, 

 or almost all, an unscientific corner or two still left in the mind, in 

 which personal vanity or petulant temper is dominant. Hence the 

 equanimity, cheerfulness, or even exultation, with which the Simial 

 origin of Man is flaunted before the eyes of those who regard 

 such a doctrine with incredulity, disgust, or horror. It is not 

 really a matter of Science which excites the combatants. It 

 belongs to a totally distinct sphere of thought. The radical 

 question which underlies all such strife is really this : Is the 

 universe all and particular the work of design or not ? And 

 this question Science, as such, cannot answer now, and never will 

 answer. Some of us cannot understand how it is possible for any 

 one to shut his eyes against what seems to us obvious, ubiquitous, 

 infinite, overwhelming evidence of Design. Evidence, I admit, 

 which can not even show itself in the closed lists of purely 

 Scientific Demonstration, but which nevertheless asserts itself as 

 conclusive in the region of Esthetic, Moral, and Philosophical 

 Necessity. On the other hand, we have to accept the fact that 

 there are many of high rank in the Scientific World who profess, 

 at least, to believe the very opposite, who are never tired of pro- 

 claiming their emancipation from " gratuitous hypotheses " and 

 other superstitions, and who protest that there is no such thing 

 as that evidence to which we appeal, and ridicule our mediseval 

 incapacity to grasp the Grreat Secret of an Unconscious, Chemical, 

 Mechanical Evolution, the true key to the Enigma of the Universe. 

 The kind of teaching, however, against which Virchowmainly pro- 

 tests is the general propagation in schools, or by the press, of such 

 doctrines as these : — " A cell consists of small particles, and these 

 we call plastidules ; plastidules, however, are composed of carbon, 

 hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen, and are endowed with a special 

 soul ; this soul is the product or the sum of the forces which the 

 chemical atoms possess." This is neither Science nor Gospel ; it 

 is Mumbojumbo. And if really great naturalists, who are con- 

 tinually face to face with the inquisition into, and cross-examina- 

 tion of, all facts that present themselves, can satisfy their minds 

 with such babbles, what may be expected from those who start 



