174 THE NEANDERTHAL SKULL. 



undoubtedly were, by the "hypothesis" of 

 Darwin, and the bolder speculations of his 

 learned disciple, Professor Huxley. Your 

 wonder will be still more excited when 

 you hear that at one of the Church 

 Congresses (Reading, 1883) of that time, 

 Professor Fowler had the temerity to 

 declare, on the principle I suppose that 



" Fools rush in where angels fear to tread " 



that " Evolution was a certainty ; that man 

 was evolved like other animals ; and that 

 special creation of known forms could not 

 be admitted." You can afford to smile at 

 such a whimsical display of ignorance 

 peculiar to the close of the 19th century. 



Professor Fowler, however, had a con- 

 genial supporter in Professor Huxley, who 

 at that time declared that " Origin of 

 Species has worked as complete a revolu- 

 tion in biological science as the Principia 

 (of Newton) did in astronomy " ! This 

 wild assumption, which the testimony of 

 the last two centuries has so completely 

 overthrown, may remind you of the con- 



