3OO The Evolution Hypothesis. 



groups of instances, evolution may be accepted as ex- 

 pressing a law of nature. How far, for example, the 

 nebular hypothesis is a true theory of the formation 

 of the heavenly bodies, and whether evolution fur- 

 nishes an adequate statement of its law, can be deter- 

 mined only by those who have made the question a 

 special study ; but it is intolerable that the experts 

 should lay down as an article of our scientific creed 

 any doctrine that is merely conjectural, or but a 

 fiction however truthlike created by the scientific 

 imagination. How far existing organisms are to be 

 taken as descended from a common stock, is also a 

 question to be settled by careful and candid examina- 

 tion of all available facts. That many variations now 

 established as specific differences have arisen in the 

 course of change, seems unquestionable ; but that all 

 organic kinds have been so created by differentiation 

 of the same living matter, is by no means proved ; and 

 it is indubitable that neither the dynamic principle of 

 Spencer, nor the "natural selection" of Darwin will 

 account for all that is to be explained in the simplest 

 and plainest instances. 



Our conclusion is, that the Evolution Hypothesis is 

 incompetent to interpret the most obvious facts in 

 nature, and is wholly illegitimate and utterly indefen- 

 sible, as a philosophy embracing the fundamental 

 principles of all departments of knowledge. Man 

 cannot recognize in it the goal of his labours, or find 

 in it the rest of his spirit. It is out of harmony with 



