THE DESCENT OF MAN 81 



I may be permitted at the close of these three 

 lectures to refer once more to the Christian stand- 

 point, as I did at the end of my first lecture, and 

 to set before you in conclusion what I may call a 

 mental lantern slide. 



Before me I see a huge ocean, and in its midst a 

 towering rock, at the foot of which the waves 

 dash up and retreat in endless alternation. This 

 rock is the Christian theory of life, and the waves 

 at its foot are the changing systems of human know- 

 ledge. The rock has stood firm and unshaken for 

 thousands of years, whilst around it many a mighty 

 storm has raged and died away. One such storm 

 began 350 years ago. A wave had rested calmly at 

 the foot of the rock for so long that the inhabitants 

 believed it to be inseparably connected with the 

 foundations of their rocky dwelling, and thought 

 that the rock would inevitably be swallowed up in 

 the deep, if another wave should come and displace 

 the former one. At last a new and mighty wave did 

 come, and displaced the other, but the rock stood 

 firm. I think you will have no difficulty in under- 

 standing my picture. The storm to which I refer, 

 when the wave of human knowledge raged against 



'We merely have dust thrown in our eyes when we read in a widely- 

 circulated book by Ernst Haeckel (he is referring to the Riddles of the 

 Universe) the following words : " That man is immediately descended 

 from apes, and more remotely from a long line of lower vertebrates, remains 

 established as an undoubted historical fact, fraught with important con- 

 sequences." It is absurd to speak of anything as a fact when experience 

 lends no support to it.' (Haeckel's Monism and its Supporters, Leipzig 

 1907, p. 6.) 



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