346 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



vidual and the palseontological history of development, etc. ; 

 and they ought to have some idea of the deep mechanical, 

 causal connection between all these series of phenomena. 

 It is self-evident that a certain degree of general culture, 

 and especially a philosophical education, is requisite ; which 

 is, however, unfortunately by many persons in our day, not 

 considered at all necessary. Without the necessary connec- 

 tion of empirical knovdedge and the philosophical under- 

 standing of biological phenomena, it is impossible to gain a 

 thorough conviction of the truth of the Theory of Descent. 



Now I ask, in the face of this first preliminary condition 

 for a true understanding of the Theory of Descent, what we 

 are to think of the confused mass of persons who have pre- 

 sumed to pass a written or oral judgment upon it of an 

 adverse character ? Most of them are unscientific persons, 

 who either know nothing of the most important phenomena 

 of Biology, or at least possess no idea of their deeper sig- 

 nificance. What should we say of an unscientific person 

 who presumed to express an opinion on the cell-theory, 

 without ever having seen cells ; or of one who presumed to 

 question the vertebral-theory, without ever having studied 

 comparative anatomy ? And yet one may meet with such 

 ridiculous arrogance any day in the history of the biological 

 Theory of Descent. One hears thousands of unscientific and 

 but half-educated persons pass a final judgment upon it, 

 although they know nothing either of botany or of zoology, 

 of comparative anatomy or the theory of tissues, of palae- 

 ontology or embryology. Hence it happens, as Huxley well 

 says, that most of the writings published against Darwin 

 are not worth the paper upon which they are written. 



We might add that there are many naturalists, and even 



