SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION. 133 



flouted away contemptuously, nor that it ought to be 

 denounced as wicked. It is to be brought before the 

 bar of disciplined reason, and there justified or con- 

 demned. Let us hearken to those who wisely support 

 it, and to those who wisely oppose it; and let us tolerate 

 those, whose name is legion, who try foolishly to do 

 either of these things. The only thing out of place in the 

 discussion is dogmatism on either side. Fear not the 

 Evolution hypothesis. Steady yourselves, in its presence, 

 upon that faith in the ultimate triumph of truth which 

 was expressed by old Gamaliel when he said: ' If it be 

 of God, ye cannot overthrow it; if it be of man, it will 

 come to nought/ Under the fierce light of scientific en- 

 quiry, it is sure to be dissipated if it possess not a core of 

 truth. Trust me, its existence as a hypothesis is quite 

 compatible with the simultaneous existence of all those 

 virtues to which the term ' Christian ' has been applied. 

 It does not solve it does not profess to solve the ul- 

 timate mystery of this universe. It leaves, in fact, that 

 mystery untouched. For, granting the nebula and its 

 potential life, the question, whence they came, would 

 still remain to baffle and bewilder us. At bottom, the 

 hypothesis does nothing more than ' transport the con- 

 ception of life's origin to an indefinitely distant past/ 



Those who hold the doctrine of Evolution are by 

 no means ignorant of the uncertainty of their data, and 

 they only yield to it a provisional assent. They regard 

 the nebular hypothesis as probable, and, in the utter 

 absence of any evidence to prove the act illegal, they 

 extend the method of nature from the present into the 

 past. Here the observed uniformity of nature is their 

 only guide. Within the long range of physical en- 

 quiry, they have never discerned in nature the inser- 

 tion of caprice. Throughout this range, the laws of 

 physical and intellectual continuity have run side by 



