142 FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE 



sidered ought, in fairness, to be outspoken. I neither 

 think this Evolution hypothesis is to be 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 condemned. 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 your- 

 selves, 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 naught." Under the fierce 

 light of scientific inquiry, 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 ex- 

 istence of all those virtues to which the term ''Christian" 

 has been applied. It does not solve it does not profess 

 to solve the ultimate 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 "trans- 

 port the conception of life's origin to an indefinitely dis- 

 tant 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 



