INTRODUCTION. XXV11 



in the new creed, is the second and possibly more im- 

 portant object. 



2. In the absence of any single and universally 

 acknowledged authority on all articles of faith and 

 doctrine I have taken the consensus of scientific opinion 

 amongst the few highest authorities on each particular 

 article, and I have treated this as the orthodox teaching 

 of Science as what would have been the decision had 

 all such authorities met together in Council to fix the 

 faith. Thus, on the question of the origin and future 

 dissolution of our earth and solar system, the most 

 eminent physicists are in the main agreed, however much 

 they may differ on such philosophical questions as the 

 immortality of the Soul or the existence of God. Pro- 

 fessors Tait and Helmholtz, for example, differing on the 

 latter, are still agreed that a widely dispersed nebulous 

 matter, closing together under gravitation, awoke the 

 sun's fires, and produced the earth and planets originally 

 at molten heat. They are further agreed, and so also are 

 Professors Balfour Stewart and Clifford, in accepting Sir 

 W. Thomson's doctrine of the Dissipation of Energy 

 with the consequent future dissolution of all the systems 

 of the universe. There is a consensus of opinion, that 

 is to say, amongst the foremost physicists as to the 

 remote physical beginning and far-off end of the material 

 universe, though they differ widely as to the nature and 

 destiny of the human soul. Accordingly, this consensus 

 of opinion may be accounted an article of scientific faith, 

 even though some physicists seem disposed to doubt it. 



In like manner, I have treated as the orthodox belief 

 the Darwinian doctrine of the origin of Species, and in 

 particular of the animal origin of Man, even though 

 there still exists with respect to both an eminent body of 



