108 HISTORY OF EVOLUTION. 



servatism toward any new truth : (1) It contradicts 

 the Bible ; (2) nothing new in it ; (3) we have always 

 believed it. 



John Wesley, " Survey of the Wisdom of God," 1775 : 

 *' In process of time many important discoveries have 

 been made, which have been gradually assented to as 

 prejudice could give place ; allowing that it takes a 

 century to make a discovery, it requires another cen- 

 tury to remove a prejudice. The modest efforts of 

 reason are too feeble to shake the foundation of error. 



" The same general design comprises all parts of the 



terrestrial creation. . . . Various productions of 



the earth are not different strokes of the same design 



. only so many various points of a single stroke. 



" All is metamorphosis. Forms are continually 

 changing. The quantity of matter alone is unvari- 

 able. The same substance passes successively into the 

 three kingdoms. The same composition becomes by 

 turn a mineral, plant, insect, reptile, fish, bird, quad- 

 ruped, man. . . . The gradation that subsists 

 between all the productions of Nature. 'Links that 

 unite.' . . . The ape is this rough draft of man. 

 This rude sketch an imperfect representation, which, 

 nevertheless, bears a resemblance to him, and is the 

 last creature that serves to display the admirable 

 progression of the works of God. Mankind have their 

 gradations as well as the other productions of our 

 globe. There are a prodigious number of continued 

 links between the most perfect man and the ape." 

 John Wesley. 



" The progress of science must be slow ; see what 

 a turmoil a little advance can make." Benjamin 

 Franklin. 



