193 



that earnest minds may not discuss with freedom, 

 and honest words convey without restraint. As a 

 problem of natural history it must be solved by 

 natural-history methods ; and, however uncertain the 

 conclusions yet arrived at, they are, like those result- 

 ing from every earnest and truth-seeMng effort, 

 entitled to a candid consideration. That they run 

 counter to old beliefs may be sufficient reason why 

 they should be narrowly scanned and received with 

 hesitancy, but it is no honest cause why their 

 tendency should be misrepresented and their advocacy 

 be traduced. Our beliefs are ever according to the 

 measure of our knowledge ; and as the knowledge of 

 our biological relations becomes more intimate, and 

 the nature of our geological relations more fully 

 established, so wUl the new beliefs respecting the 

 origin, antiquity, and destiny of man gain a wider 

 acceptance. It is the old warfare with ignorance and 

 prejudice; the old combat between rational inquiry 

 and traditional faith : need we indicate with what 

 side the victory must ultimately rest 1 As the older 

 beliefs in the sun revolving round the earth, in the 

 limited antiquity of our globe, in the permanence of 

 its seas and continents, in the sameness of its plants 

 and animals through all previous time, in fossils 

 being sports of nature, anij a thousand others equally 



sincere but equally mistaken, have all passed or are 

 



