DARWIN. 191 



dreamed. When we speak of the '* infancy of the 

 race," we use language as true in science as appro- 

 priate in poetry. 



The question of the origin of man, though per- 

 haps the most interesting problem in science, offers 

 to the student of Nature peculiar difficulties. Ma- 

 terials for exact knowledge are few, and prejudices 

 are strong, and all tendencies favor an immediate 

 decision on doubtful points, though the evidence 

 be far from sufficient. Of not one man, nor mon- 

 key, nor bird, nor beast in half a million does a 

 trace remain after a thousand years, — not a bone, 

 not a relic, not a thought. Living on the surface, 

 we crumble into dust; and the current phases of 

 our life, a few centuries out of hundreds, are all of 

 man's history we can surely know. Many links are 

 missing still, and most of these we can never find. 

 Our early ancestry we can only infer from our 

 knowledge of our contemporaries. 



Whatever the final outcome of the study of the 

 origin of man, Christianity cannot suffer. It has not 

 suffered in the past from other discussions of this 

 sort. Theologians and philosophers have suffered, 

 but not religion. *' Extinguished theologians," 

 says Huxley, " lie about the cradle of every sci- 

 ence, as the strangled snakes beside that of the 

 infant Hercules." Looking over the history of 

 human thought, we see the attempt to fasten to 

 Christianity each decaying belief in science. That 

 the earth is round, that it moves about the sun, that 

 it is old, that granite ever was melted, — all these 

 beliefs, now part of our common knowledge, have 

 been declared contrary to religion, and Christian 



