420 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



other questions which have supplied materials for 

 long and acrimonious controversy. Thus, until the 

 last century it was the almost universally accepted 

 belief that the days of Genesis were real solar days 

 of twenty-four hours each. It was likewise the 

 general opinion that the Noachian Deluge was uni- 

 versal, not only as to the earth's surface but also 

 as to the destruction "of all flesh, wherein is the 

 breath of life, under heaven." And until a few 

 decades ago it was the current belief, that the ad- 

 vent of our race on earth did not date back much 

 farther than four thousand years B. c., and that 

 the only reliable evidence we had for the solution 

 of the problem involved, was to be found in certain 

 statements of the Sacred Text. So, too, from the 

 time of Aristotle until that of Palissy, the potter, 

 we might say even until the time of Cuvier, it was 

 believed that fossils were but " sports of nature," "re- 

 sults of seminal air acting upon rocks," or "rejected 

 models" of the Creator's work. 



Now it would probably be difficult, if not im- 

 possible, to give an absolute proof of the unsound- 

 ness of these views, and that for the simple reason that 

 anything like a mathematical demonstration is, by 

 the very nature of the case, out of question. Rigor- 

 ously speaking, the theories involved in the above 

 beliefs, with the exception, perhaps, of that 

 regarding the antiquity of man, are susceptible 

 neither of proof nor of disproof. The most we 

 can have, at least for the present, is a greater or 

 less degree of probability, for it is manifest that the 

 Almighty, had He so willed, could have created the 



