166 WHAT IS DARWINISM f 



sense of insignificance which every man expe- 

 riences when he thinks of himself as a speck 

 on the surface of the earth, which itself is but 

 a speck in the immensity of the universe. 

 And when a man of mere ordinary culture 

 sees Sir William Thomson surveying that field 

 with a mastery of its details and familiarity 

 with all the recondite methods of its investi- 

 gation, he feels as nothing in his presence. 

 Yet this great man, whom we cannot help 

 regarding with wonder, is so carried away by 

 the spirit of his class as to say, " Science is 

 bound, by the everlasting law of honor, to face 

 fearlessly every problem which can fairly be 

 brought before it. If a probable solution, con- 

 sistent with the ordinary course of nature, can 

 be found, we must not invoke an abnormal act 

 of Creative Power." And, therefore, instead 

 of invoking Creative Power, he accounts for 

 the origin of life on earth by falling meteors. 

 How he accounts for its origin in the places 

 whence the meteors came, he does not say. 

 Yet Sir William Thomson believes in Creative 

 Power; and in a subsequent page, we shall 

 quote his explicit repudiation of the atheistic 

 element in the Darwinian theory. 



Strauss quotes Dubois-Reymond, a distin- 



