io EXPERIMENTAL EVOLUTION LECT. 



hope not. We are such savages. The more we study 

 nature in its broadest sense, the more its wheels seem 

 intricate, and its movements complex. Of course we 

 do not understand how it was made so, we do not 

 understand the watchmaker, nor even his design and 

 purpose in making the watch, but we perceive the 

 watch, we understand part of its movements, and so 

 are compelled to believe in the existence of the' 

 watchmaker, although we can form no definite idea 

 concerning him. 



But the fact of believing in the watchmaker's exist- 

 ence, which is forced upon us by the fact that we 

 never have seen a single watch ; come spontaneously 

 into existence, and that our experience shows that no 

 single element wheel, axis, or spring has ever spon- 

 taneously appeared, does not necessarily compel us 

 to accept the second, above-named, of the three 

 hypotheses which Prof. Huxley recognizes. We 

 may very well accept the watchmaker's existence 

 without being obliged to believe that he made the 

 watch in the particular method described in the 

 Scriptures, and assumed by the adherents of the 

 Special Creation Theory. And we cannot so long 

 as neither energy nor matter can be shown to arise 

 spontaneously out of nothingness we cannot, upon 

 any theory, dispense w r ith the existence of a Creator. 



The third hypothesis is the hypothesis of Evolution. 



