SCIENTIFIC USE OF THE IMAGINATION. 159 



tions define a hypothesis not without its difficulties, but 

 the dignity of which was demonstrated by the nobleness 

 of the men whom it sustained. 



Modern scientific thought is called upon to decide be- 

 tween this hypothesis and another: and public thought 

 generally will afterward be called upon to do the same. 

 You may, however, rest secure in the belief that the hy- 

 pothesis just sketched can never be stormed, and that it is 

 sure, if it yield at all, to yield to a prolonged siege. To 

 gain new territory modern argument requires more time 

 than modern arms, though both of them move with greater 

 rapidity than of yore. But however the convictions of indi- 

 viduals here and there may be influenced, the process must 

 be slow and secular which commends the rival hypothesis 

 of Natural Evolution to the public mind. For what are the 

 core and essence of this hypothesis ? Strip it naked and 

 you stand face to face with the notion that not alone the 

 more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone 

 the nobler forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exqui- 

 site and wonderful mechanism of the human body, but that 

 the human mind itself — emotion, intellect, will, and all their 

 phenomena — were once latent in a fiery cloud. Surely 

 the mere statement of such a notion is more than a refu- 

 tation. But the hypothesis would probably go even further 

 than this. Many who hold it would probably assent to the 

 position that at the present moment all our philosophy, all 

 our poetry, all our science, and all our art — Plato, Shake- 

 speare, Newton, and Raphael — are potential in the fires of 

 the sun. We long to learn something of our origin. If 

 the Evolution hypothesis be correct, even this unsatisfied 

 yearning must have come to us across the ages which sepa- 

 rate the unconscious primeval mist from the consciousness 

 of to-day. I do not think that any holder of the Evolution 

 hypothesis would say that I overstate it or overstrain it in 

 any way. I merely strip it of all vagueness, and bring 



