AND THE FIRST VERTEBRATE. 157 



further to press upon him the advantage of ceasing to 

 ' deny ' it, and, above all, of ceasing to deny it with any 

 admixture of religious phraseology in his denial. He 

 has himself allowed that sciences, seemingly most at 

 variance with the language of Scripture, have come to 

 be reconciled with it; he must see, therefore, that the 

 appearances of Scriptural language can be no objection 

 to Darwinism or to any other scientific theory whatever. 

 Darwinism is founded on the comparison of an enormous 

 number of well-ascertained facts issuing in a few gene- 

 ralizations of extreme importance if true, but also of 

 considerable importance, even if far short of the truth. 

 Every hypothesis which will explain a large number of 

 hitherto disconnected facts, though it may be in itself 

 erroneous, helps and guides men in the end towards 

 the true explanation. To ' deny,"* or, in other words, to 

 make a public protest against such hypotheses without 

 having anything better or equal, or a tenth part as 

 good to offer in their stead, is to be a hinderer of 

 science, and, instead of being really pious and reverent, 

 is a very pretty, though doubtless unconscious imitation 

 of that rhetoric which, because of the acknowledged 

 difficulties in every form of religion, ' denies' religion 

 altogether. 



That your correspondent does lay just a little tiny 

 claim to infallibility is clear from the very letter in 

 which he modestly disowns it : for he therein prays 

 always to be enabled to think and act about the inter- 

 pretation of Scripture as he now thinks and acts, which 

 would be a foolish prayer, if his present thoughts and 



