20 PEESIDENTIAL ADDRESS, 



of the whole progress of the universe from the first speck of 

 living protoplasm to the highest development of human intel- 

 lect. This practically led to materialism and to the implied de- 

 nial of a God either as Creator or as a superintending Providence. 

 But the Christian has to recognize with thankfulness a much 

 more modest tone rapidly spreading among the scientific leaders 

 of thought, though not yet among the scientists who ape them. 

 In the last four meetings of the British Association the recogni- 

 tion that we have as yet no evidence of the natural origin of life 

 has been most distinctly upheld, as well as the distinctions be- 

 tween mind and matter, between the moral and the physical. 

 This is especially the case in regard to the theories of the origin 

 of man. By no one has this been more ably set forth than by 

 Mr. "Wallace himself. The conclusion to which he arrives is that 

 if man has been developed from a common ancestor with all ex- 

 isting apes, and by no other agencies than such as have affected 

 their development, then he must have existed in something ap- 

 proaching his present form during the tertiary period, and not 

 merely existed but predominated in numbers, wherever suitable 

 conditions prevailed. If these continued researches in all parts 

 of Europe and Asia fail to bring to light any proof of his presence, 

 it will be at least a presumption that he came into existence at 

 a much later date, and by a much more rapid process of develop- 

 ment. In that case it is a fair argument that just as he is in his 

 mental and moral nature, his capacities and aspirations, infinitely 

 raised above the brutes, so his origin is due in part to distinct and 

 higher agencies than such as have effected the development of the 

 others. Then again the wonderful remains of Easter Island, prov- 

 ing the existence in the far remote past of the art of navigation 

 and civilization far higher than now exists anywhere in the Pacific ; 

 the great earthworks and monuments of lost races, the predeces- 

 sors of the Eed Indians in K'orth America, and of whom there 

 was not a vestige of tradition ; the wonderful symmetry and re- 

 fined geodetical science exhibited in the construction of the Great 

 Pyramid, the oldest historical building in the world ; — all these 

 tell us that human progress has not been uniform and continuous, 

 as according to received theories it ought to be, but that there have 



