8 THE KINGDOM OF MAN 



found on the other hand, by many who have considered 

 these speculations, and hold no less explicitly than do 

 the ' supernaturalists ' that life is a momentous and 

 peculiar feature of our earth's surface and Man the 

 isolated and unparalleled 'piece of work,' 'the beauty 

 of the world,' ' the paragon of animals ' it is found 

 by many such, I say, that nothing is gained in regard 

 to our conception of Man's nobility and significance 

 by supposing that he and the living matter which has 

 given rise to him, are not the outcome of that system 

 of orderly process which we call Nature. 



There is one consideration in regard to this matter 

 which, it seems, is often overlooked and should be 

 emphasized. It is sometimes and perhaps with a 

 sufficient excuse in a want of acquaintance with Nature 

 held by those who oppose the conclusion that Man 

 has been evolved by natural processes, that the pro- 

 ducts of Nature are arbitrary, haphazard, and due to 

 chance, and that Man cannot be conceived of as 

 originating by chance. This notion of ' chance ' is 

 a misleading figment inherited by the modern world 

 from days of blank ignorance. The ' Nature-searchers ' 

 of to-day admit no such possibility as ' chance.' It 

 will be in the recollection of many here, that a lead- 

 ing writer and investigator of the Victorian Era, the 

 physicist John Tyndall, pointed out in a celebrated 

 address delivered at Belfast that according to the con- 

 ceptions of the mechanism of Nature arrived at by 

 modern science the structure of that mechanism is 

 such that it would have been possible for a being of 

 adequate intelligence inspecting the gaseous nebula from 

 which our planetary system has evolved to have fore- 

 seen in that luminous vapour the Belfast audience and 

 the professor addressing it ! 



