132 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



begun ; until the eroding forces of the atmosphere had 

 weathered and decomposed the molten rocks so as to 

 form soils ; until the sun's rays had become so tempered 

 by distance, and by waste, as to be chemically fit for 

 the decompositions necessary to vegetable life? Having 

 waited through these aeons until the proper conditions 

 had set in, did it send the fiat forth, ' Let there be 

 Life ! ' ? These questions define a hypothesis not with- 

 out its difficulties, but the dignity of which in relation 

 to the world's knowledge was demonstrated by the 

 nobleness of the men whom it sustained. 



Modern scientific thought is called upon to decide 

 between this hypothesis and another; and public 

 thought generally will afterwards be called upon to do 

 the same. But, however the convictions of individuals 

 here and there may be influenced, the process must be 

 slow and secular which commends the hypothesis of 

 Natural Evolution to the public mind. For what are 

 the core and essence of this hypothesis ? Strip it 

 naked, and you stand face to face with the notion that 

 not alone the more ignoble forms of anirnalcular or 

 animal life, not alone the nobler forms of the horse 

 and lion, not alone the exquisite and wonderful 

 mechanism of the human body, but that the human 

 mind itself emotion, intellect, will, and all their 

 phenomena were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely 

 the mere statement of such a notion is more than a 

 refutation. But the hypothesis would probably go 

 even farther than this. Many who hold it would 

 probably assent to the position that, at the present 

 moment, all our philosophy, all our poetry, all our 

 science, and all our art Plato, Shakspeare, Newton, 

 and Raphael are potential in the fires of the sun. 

 We long to learn something of our origin. If the 

 Evolution hypothesis be correct, even this unsatisfied 



