THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 173 



saying "All science starts with hypo- 

 theses in other words, with assumptions 

 that are unproved, while they may be and 

 often are erroneous" (p. 55). Now this 

 was exactly the position of the Darwinian 

 philosophy at the close of the 19th century, 

 after 100 years' trial. Started originally 

 by Lord Monboddo towards the end of the 

 18th century, it remained in its cradle, 

 overwhelmed with the swaddling clothes 

 which Mr. Darwin's disciples heaped upon 

 the unhappy babe during a century of 

 almost unequalled progress in scientific 

 discovery, until the year before his death 

 in 1882, Mr. Darwin acknowledged to 

 a friendly enquirer that his Evolution 

 theory was " only an hypothesis " still. 

 You, therefore, Gentlemen, living in this 

 more enlightened age of the 21st century, 

 when the theory has melted away and 

 evaporated, like so many other unsub- 

 stantial theories, " into the infinite azure 

 of the past," will naturally wonder that 

 your ancestors two centuries ago should 

 have been so " bewitched," as they 



