48 Scientific Sophisms. 



tion that " the latest results of civilization M 

 have been evolved, in the way of necessary and 

 inevitable consequence, from " the earliest trace- 

 able cosmical changes." Human life, with all its 

 inexhaustible possibilities, has been evolved from 

 life infra-human. The life of the lower animals, 

 like that of plants, was in the first instance 

 evolved from non-living matter ; as that matter 

 itself was evolved from " cosmic vapour." 



Professor Tyndall, as we have seen, tells us 

 that " the world even the clerical world has 

 for the most part settled down in the belief that 

 Mr. Darwin's book simply reflects the truth of 

 Nature : that we who are now ' foremost in the 

 files of time ' have come to the front through 

 almost endless stages of promotion from lower 

 to higher forms of life." l And again : 



" It is now generally admitted that the man 

 of to-day is the child and product of incalcu- 

 lable antecedent time. His physical and intel- 

 lectual textures have been woven for him during 

 his passage through phases of history and forms 

 of existence which lead the mind back to an 

 abysmal past." 3 " If to any one of us were 

 given the privilege of looking back through the 



1 " Science and Man." Fortnightly Review, voL xxii. 

 p. 61 1. 



3 Ibid., p. 594. 



