- ; * . . 



- 



4 INTRODUCTORY 



inconsistencies, that it offers to us, at any moment, 

 the exciting surprises of a dramatic entertain- 

 ment. It is not only that cruelty and kindness, 

 selfishness and self-denial, strength and weakness, 

 distinguish different members of the same com- 

 munity : the same person may unaccountably 

 display these opposite qualities at different 

 moments of our acquaintanceship. For what 

 diversity of purposes does man use his tongue ! 

 " Therewith bless we God, even the Father ; and 

 therewith curse we men, which are made after the 

 similitude of God." 



By the variety as well as by the complexity of 

 his nature man is separated from the brutes by a 

 gulf that appears to be unbridgeable. Yet, if we 

 accept the doctrine of evolution, we must believe 

 that man has crossed this gulf to win the privileges 

 of his position, and owes his form, his talents, and 

 his aspirations to a gradual development out of 

 brutish conditions. The roots of the excellencies 

 upon which we pride ourselves must stretch down 

 the length of the animal kingdom, must, indeed, 

 be traceable were we able to trace them not 

 merely in what are generally called the " lower 

 animals," but in the minute animalcules which 

 flit across the field of the microscope. For, unless 

 the germs of our qualities exist in the lowest forms 

 of life, we must have been endowed with them, 

 at one stage or another, by acts of special creation, 

 and for such interpositions of Providence the 

 doctrine of evolution has no place. May we not, 

 then, reject a theory which strains our powers of 

 belief so harshly ? Only if we can close our ears 

 against a cloud of witnesses. Geology testifies 

 that the forms of animal and vegetable life change 

 and become simpler and simpler with the increas- 



