228 PRESENT-DAY RATIONALISM 



quarters — palaeontology, comparative anatomy, embry- 

 ology, transitional forms of living beings, etc. ; such are 

 more than ample to establish the truth of it ; so that any 

 alternative proposed at the present day to Evolution 

 (whatever be the actual process in Nature) is absolutely 

 inconceivable. 



In fact, we live upon inductive evidence every day of 

 our lives. We trust ourselves in trains because the pro- 

 bability that we shall arrive at our destination safe and 

 sound is of a high order, i.e., a practical but not absolute 

 certainty. 



Circumstantial evidence is another example. No one 

 saw the crime committed ; but the supposed criminal was 

 condemned from the accumulation of facts which all 

 pointed to the one probability of the man having done 

 the deed. 



Now Rationalists are inconsistent ; the}' cannot but 

 admit the foregoing, yet refuse to believe in God, free- 

 dom and immortality, because they (as they assert) escape 

 " practical demonstration," but they can be all shown to 

 be overwhelnimgly probable : and that is all we want in 

 this world. We must live by faith {i.e., inductive evidence) 

 in the spiritual world and not only by sight. 



Darwinism, however, was not based on inductive 

 reasoning, but solely on a priori assumptions, that is, 

 deductive reasoning, on an assumed basis ; but without 

 any axiom or postulate which could not be gainsaid. 

 " Indefinite variations " might be called Darwin's axiom ; 

 but unfortunately they only existed in his own imagination. 



Now it is strange to find Rationalists so strongly 

 maintaining the supremacy of reason, yet all bowing 

 down in abject obeisance to authority in the form of 

 Darwinism ; which they regard as the very " basis of 

 Monism ". 



