114 THE PRESIDENTS ADDRESS. 
under very different auspices. We cannot treat them with too sincere 
respect even while rejecting them. They are no rash and hastily 
formed fancies of a shallow theorist, but the earnest convictions of an 
eminent English naturalist of great and varied experience, set forth 
as deductions based on a continuous series of observations and ex- 
periments, extending over upwards of twenty years; and heralded by 
the favourable testimony of some of the most cautious and discrimina- 
ting among his scientific contemporaries. Nevertheless, the time 
which has been already allowed for the critical investigation of such 
evidence as is advanced to sustain his comprehensive hypothesis, has 
only tended to discredit his transmutation theory, and add assurance 
to the convictions of the scientific believer in the idea of creation as 
the only satisfactory solution of the succession of life. Science has 
achieved wondrous triumphs, but life is a thing it can neither create 
nor account for, by mere physics. Nor can we assume even that the 
whole law of life can be embraced within the process of induction, as 
carried out by an observer so limited as man is, in relation to the 
sequence of time, and to the cosmical changes by which so much of 
the record is erased. Darwin, indeed, builds largely on hypotheses 
constructed to supply the gaps in the geological record; but whilst 
welcoming every new truth which enlarges our conception of the 
cosmic unity, all nature still says as plamly to us as to the Idumean 
patriarch: ‘“Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find 
out the Almighty to perfection ?”’ 
Assuredly it is in no spirit of sceptical presumption that Darwin 
has set forth his views ; and I heartily accord with the claim advanced 
by Professor Huxley, that the arguments of an experienced and pro- 
found naturalist on pure questions of science, must be met on scientific 
grounds alone. But when science claims not only to disclose the 
nature of all living and extinct organizations, but to determine their 
primary origin, it is difficult even on purely scientific grounds, to 
avoid reasserting the truth which all nature audibly affirms, that 
creation owes its existence to a Creator. And at every appearance of 
new organic forms in the geological strata of the earth, science sacri- 
fices no jot or tittle of its true dignity, when owning a higher law, it 
admits that He who, in the beginning, created the heavens and the 
earth, has in like manner put forth the same creative power at every 
successive origination of species. 
The geologist in reasoning on the succession of life, has hitherto 
