Jas. 23, 1SS5] 



• KNOWLEDGE • 



05 



NIGHT SKY FOR JANUARY (Second Map of Paih), 



Showing the heavens as they appear at the following hours : — 



January 22 at 10 o'clock. 

 Jannary 23 at 9| o'clock. 

 January 29 at 9J o'clock. 



FeViruary 2 at 95 o'clock. 

 February fi at 9 o'clock. 

 February 10 at 8J o'clock. 



February 14 .'it ft^ o'clock. 

 February 17 at 8J o'clock. 

 Febru.iry 21 at 8 o'clock. 



Iiom the very first. But this is not a view which the 

 theory of evolution could lead us to accept ; it can only be 

 .adopted by those who, ignoring all the facts of evolution, 

 delight to believe in the theory of special creation. 

 As a typical exposition of this theory, I venture to 

 ■literally translate the following pas.'ages by M. Renan : 

 •" Language at all times eeems to us to be parallel 

 to the human mind. Now, from the very finst 

 moment of its constitution, the human mind was com- 

 plete; . . . Has man acquired his different faculties sue- 

 «f ssively 1 Who can even dare to think it ? We can 

 establish a rigorous analogy between the facts relating to 

 the development of mind and the facts relating to the 



development of language. It i", therefore, impossible t 

 imagine language painfully completing its difierent parts, 

 because it is impos-ible to imagine the human mind seeking 

 its faculties one after the other.'* In another place he 

 says : " It is, therefore, a dream to imagine a primitive 

 state in which man did not speak, followed by another stage 

 in which he had acquired the use of language. Man speaks 

 naturally as he thinks naturally, and it is as bad ['hiloso- 

 phically to assign a voluntary beginning to language as to 

 thought;" t and he continues, " Hence the different systems 

 of language were not formed by successive juxtapositions, 



* " Histniro lea Langues Semitiquea," Livre V., chap. II., p. 471. 

 t " Do I'Origine du Langage," p. 91. 



