THEORIES OF NATURAL SELECTION AND DESIGN. 67 



can resist, with regard to one of the grandest attempts at systematising that 

 was ever made, — the time comes when one sees how impossible it is to 

 carry the sequence back to the very beginning, and a sort of reaction sets 

 in. What I have said has only been about this theory of descent ; it 

 has nothing to do with the question of religion. I have been consider- 

 ing whether the theory is true, and I say it has not been shown to 

 be true. Of course, the clergy have not the time to investigate these 

 things ; but I have sometimes heard in sermons the assumption made — a 

 little too prematurely — that the theory is true, and then, that it is recon- 

 cilable with Christianity. But I repeat that it has not been shown to be 

 true, and I think that, upon the whole, a slight reaction is beginning to 

 evidence itself in the scientifiu world. Even Darwin admitted, in his last 

 edition, that Mr. Mivart had brought powerful arguments against him. 

 That gentleman is a distinguished zoologist, who doubts very much some of 

 the conclusions at which Darwin arrived ; and I suppose there is scarcely 

 any one who nowadays says that natural selection, pure and simple, is 

 sufficient to account for the production of species. We know that Professor 

 Huxley has said very decidedly that it is not. The subject certainly is a 

 most interesting one ; but the question, as limited to the theory of descent, 

 whether animals owe their origin to certain ancestors or not, must always 

 "be left to people's private judgment, as it cannot be decided, and, even on 

 the part of the evolutionist, must be quite as much a matter of faith as the 

 question of creation and other theories. (Applause.) 

 The meeting was then adjourned. 



