242 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [XIL 



been amply avenged. Extinguished theologians lie about the 

 cradle of every science as the strangled snakes beside that of 

 Hercules ; and history records that whenever science and ortho 

 doxy have been fairly opposed, the latter has been forced to retire 

 from the lists, bleeding and crushed, if not annihilated ; scotched, 

 if not slain. But orthodoxy is the Bourbon of the world of 

 thought. It learns not, neither can it forget ; and though, at 

 present, bewildered and afraid to move, it is as willing as ever to 

 insist that the first chapter of Genesis contains the beginning 

 and the end of sound science ; and to visit, with such petty 

 thunderbolts as its half-paralysed hands can hurl, those 

 who refuse to degrade Nature to the level of primitive 

 Judaism. 



Philosophers, on the other hand, have no such aggressive 

 tendencies. With eyes fixed on the noble goal to which &quot;per 

 aspera et ardua&quot; they tend, they may, now and then, be 

 stirred to momentary wrath by the unnecessary obstacles with 

 which the ignorant, or the malicious, encumber, if they cannot 

 bar, the difficult path ; but why should their souls be deeply 

 vexed ? The majesty of Fact is on their side, and the ele 

 mental forces of Nature are working for them. Not a star comes 

 to the meridian at its calculated time but testifies to the justice 

 of their methods their beliefs are &quot; one with the falling rain 

 and with the growing corn.&quot; By doubt they are established, and 

 open inquiry is their bosom friend. Such men have no fear of 

 traditions however venerable, and no respect for them when they 

 become mischievous and obstructive ; but they have better than 

 mere antiquarian business in hand, and if dogmas, which ought 

 to be fossil but are not, are not forced upon their notice, they are 

 too happy to treat them as non-existent. 



The hypotheses respecting the origin of species which profess 

 to stand upon a scientific basis, and, as such, alone demand 

 serious attention, are of two kinds. The one, the &quot; special 

 creation &quot; hypothesis, presumes every species to have originated 

 from one or more stocks, these not being the result of the 



