PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION. 413 



of heat in space, went on, the planets were detached ; 

 and that our present sun is the residual nucleus of the 

 flocculent or gaseous hall from which the planets were 

 successively separated. Life, as we define it, was not 

 possible for aeons subsequent to this separation. When 

 and how did it appear ? I have already pressed this 

 question, but have received no answer. 1 If, with Pro- 

 fessor Knight, we regard the Bible account of the 

 introduction of life upon the earth as a poem, not as a 

 statement of fact, where are we to seek for guidance as 

 to the fact ? There does not exist a barrier possessing 

 the strength of a cobweb to oppose to the hypothesis 

 which ascribes the appearance of life to that ' potency 

 of matter ' which finds expression in natural evolution.* 

 This hypothesis is not without its difficulties, but they 

 vanish when compared with those which encumber its 

 rivals. There are various facts in science obviously 

 connected, and whose connections we are unable to 

 trace ; but we do not think of filling the gap between 

 them by the intrusion of a separable spiritual agent. 

 In like manner though we are unable to trace the 

 course of things from the nebula, when there was no 

 life in our sense, to the present earth where life abounds, 

 the spirit and practice of science pronounce against the 

 intrusion of an anthropomorphic creator. Theologians 

 must liberate and refine their conceptions or be pre- 

 pared for the rejection of them by thoughtful minds. 

 It is they, not we, who lay claim to knowledge never 

 given to man. Our refusal of the creative hypothesis 

 is less an assertion of knowledge than a protest against 



1 In the ' Apology for the Belfast Address,' the question is 

 reasoned out. 



* ' We feel it an undeniable necessity,' says Professor Virchow, 

 ' not to sever the organic world from the whole, as if it were some- 

 thing disjoined from the whole.' This grave statement cannot be 

 weakened by the subsequent pleasantry regarding Carbon & Co.* 



