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generally will afterwards be called upon to do the same. 

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

 hypothesis 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 individuals 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 exquisite and wonderful mechanism of the human 

 body, but that the human mind itself emotion, intel- 

 lect, will, and all their phenomena were once latent in 

 a fiery cloud. Surely the mere statement of such a 

 motion is more than a refutation. 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, Shakespeare, New- 

 ton, 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 

 separate the unconscious primeval mist from the con- 

 sciousness 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 vague- 

 ness, and bring before you, unclothed and unvarnished, 

 the notions by which it must stand or fall 



