50 FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 
more clearly than the members of the highest order of 
mammals, Either these homologies are real and thus 
show the existence of a real bond of union, or else they 
are mere mockeries like the face in the pansy flower. 
If homologies are mockeries, then indeed our science 
has made no progress, for this was the belief of the 
middle ages. 
So much for what we know. Our objections to rec- 
ognising our kinship with the lower forms—if we have 
any such objections—rest on considerations outside the 
domain of knowledge. They do not rest on religious 
grounds. Those who think so deceive themselves. 
“Secondary causes,” as the phrase is used, belong to 
the province of science. They are outside the domain 
of religion. “Theology and science,” says Darwin, 
“should each run its own course. .. . Iam not respon- 
sible if their meeting point should still be far off.” 
This is not a question of preference one way or 
another. Personal preference has no place in science. 
Man was not present at the foundation of the world. 
It is not a question to be decided one way or another 
by a majority vote. Truth cares nothing for majorities, 
and the majority of one age may be the wonder or the 
shame of the next. 
The only question is this: Is it true? And if it be 
the truth, nothing in the universe can be truer. “ Ex- 
tinguished theologians,” Huxley tells us, 
“lie about the cradle of every science 
as the strangled snakes beside that of 
the infant Hercules.” Looking along the history of 
human thought, we see the attempt to fasten to Chris- 
tianity each decaying belief in science, Every failing 
scientific notion has claimed orthodoxy for itself. That 
the earth is round, that it moves about the sun, that it is 
old, that granite ever was melted—all these beliefs, now 
Decaying 
scientific beliefs. 
