IN EVOLUTION FROM A GEOLOGICAL POINT OF VIEW. 181 
limits of any preconceived human axioms. We simply have 
to weigh every fact of paleontology and of embryology, and 
to inquire in what direction its evidence goes. That evidence 
has now become weaker on its mechanical, but stronger on 
its philosophic side. 
‘his change in the weight of the evidence may be illus- 
trated by a trivial allegory. Suppose we were entirely 
ignorant of the art of pottery, and that. for the first time we 
came across some ordinary set of china ware. Suppose too 
either that our knowledge were so bounded that we did not 
recognize their purely mineral character, or that we had some 
scientific reason to regard them as in the nature of fossils or 
remains of something having a history akin to life (assuming 
the possibility of a character ranking with, but distinct from, 
those which we know as animal and vegetable life). Upon 
examination of the set we should at once be struck with the 
various similarities existing in its diverse articles, which would 
clearly prove to us some definite relationship between them all. 
Next suppose that in our investigations we discovered, 
besides the finished set, a workshop containing the un- 
finished articles in various stages of incompleteness down to 
that point where they were all in their most immature 
condition. It would be only natural to apply to them the 
doctrine of evolution, and doubtless the result would be to 
trace the whole varied set back to a common source, and 
to find for them all a common origin. But, leaving sup- 
position, let us now face fact. The fact is that on the one 
hand the set owes its cosmos not to unity in its own origin, 
but to the mind of the Potter; but that on the other hand 
the immature examples do truly point to actual descent 
through the working of the Potter’s hands. We need not 
pursue the illustration further. The correspondences of 
animated nature reveal the unity of the Creative Mind, 
whether or not they prove universal community of descent 
in things created. For the latter problem scientific research 
does not yet seem sufficiently advanced to give a final 
solution; but its progress may tend to do so at some future 
time. What seems essential is that it should never be 
assumed to prove more than in any particular it actually 
does prove; that no missing links in any chain of facts be 
allowed to be filled in by theories however specious or 
ingenious ; and that every discovered scientific fact be given 
its true weight without bias, and be never fitted by force 
into a preconceived hypothesis. 
