386 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



but the triumphs of these pioneers of the renaissance 

 of science will endure with undiminished lustre as 

 long as there shall remain an annalist to record the 

 achievements of human progress. 



Evolution in the Future. 



What shall ultimately be the fate of the argu- 

 ments now so confidently advanced in favor of Evo- 

 lution by its friends, and against it by its enemies, 

 only the future can decide. The grounds of defense 

 and attack will, no doubt, witness many and impor- 

 tant changes. Future research and discovery will 

 reveal the weakness of arguments that are now con- 

 sidered unassailable, and expose the fallacies of 

 others which, as at present viewed, are thoroughly 

 logical. But new reasons in favor of Evolution will 

 be forthcoming in proportion as the older ones shall 

 be modified or shown to be untenable. And, as the 

 evolutionary idea shall be more studied and devel- 

 oped, the objections which are now urged against it 

 will, I doubt not, disappear or lose much of their 

 cogency. New theories will be promulgated, new 

 explanations of present difficulties will be suggested, 

 and a clearer knowledge will be vouchsafed of what 

 are the real, if not the chief factors, of the vast evolu- 

 tionary processes which are at the bottom of all forms 

 of organic development. As in physics so also in bi- 

 ology; continued investigation of facts and phenom- 

 ena is sure to issue in a clearer and truer view of 

 nature, and of the agencies which have been in- 

 strumental in bringing animated nature from its 



