" COWARDLY AGNOSTICISM." 227 



is made is the same everywhere and follows the same laws — 

 whether at Clapham Common or in the farthest system of stars — 

 and that this has always been so to the remotest of the penetrable 

 abysses of time. It is established yet further that the universe 

 in its present condition has evolved itself out of simpler condi- 

 tions, solely in virtue of the qualities which still inhere in its ele- 

 ments, and make to-day what it is, just as they have made all yes- 

 terdays. 



Lastly, in this physical universe science has included man — 

 not alone his body, but his life and his mind also. Every opera- 

 tion of thought, every fact of consciousness, it has shown to be 

 associated in a constant and definite way with the presence and 

 with certain conditions of certain particles of matter, which are 

 shown, in their turn, to be in their last analysis absolutely similar 

 to the matter of gases, plants, or minerals. The demonstration 

 has every appearance of being morally complete. The interval 

 between mud and mind, seemingly so impassable, has been trav- 

 ersed by a series of closely consecutive steps. Mind, which was 

 once thought to have descended into matter, is shown forming 

 itself, and slowly emerging out of it. From forms of life so low 

 that naturalists can hardly decide whether it is right to class 

 them as plants or animals, up to the life that is manifested in 

 saints, heroes, or philosophers, there is no break to be detected in 

 the long process of development. There is no step in the process 

 where science finds any excuse for postulating or even suspecting 

 the presence of any new factor. 



And the same holds good of the lowest forms of life, and what 

 Prof. Huxley calls "the common matter of the universe." It is 

 true that experimentalists have been thus far unable to observe 

 the generation of the former out of the latter, but this failure may 

 be accounted for in many ways, and does nothing to weaken the 

 overwhelming evidence of analogy that such generation really 

 does take place or has taken place at some earlier period. " Car- 

 bonic acid, water, and ammonia," says Prof. Huxley, " certainly 

 possess no properties but those of ordinary matter. . . . But when 

 they are brought together under certain conditions they give rise 

 to protoplasm ; and this protoplasm exhibits the phenomenon of 

 life. I see no breach in this series of steps in molecular complica- 

 tion, and I am unable to understand why the language which is 

 applicable to any one form of the series may not be used to any of 

 the others." * 



So much, then, for what modern science teaches us as to the 

 universe and the evolution of man. "We will presently consider 

 the ways, sufficiently obvious as they are, in which this seems to 

 conflict with the ideas of all theism and theology. But first for a 



* "Lay Sermons, Addresses, and Reviews," pp. 114, 117. 



