3 24 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



appears that, owing to the requirements of modern society, our 

 volitions are called upon now to check feeling, now to force it into 

 play. The studied graces of smile, dilating eye, and mellifluous voice, 

 make up a perfectly new order of quasi expressions, which might per- 

 haps in a highly-artificial state of society gradually supplant many of 

 the older and familiar forms of emotional utterance. Whether the 

 agencies which tend to sustain genuine emotional expression will 

 prove to have more vitality than those which go to suppress it, and 

 how far, supposing spontaneous utterances of emotion to grow out of 

 date, artificial imitations of them will continue in fashion, are points 

 which we do not attempt to determine. Enough has been said, per- 

 haps, to show how curiously complex are the conditions of the prob- 

 lem. — Saturday Review. 



GENESIS, GEOLOGY, AND EVOLUTION. 1 



By Eev. GEOKGE HENSLOW F. L. S., F. G. S. 



THE theory, or rather doctrine, of the Evolution of Living Things 

 has not yet received that uniform acceptance to which it is un- 

 doubtedly entitled. That it will in time become generally received 

 may be reasonably presumed ; but at present, with many theologians 

 at least, the creative hypothesis obstinately holds its ground. Two 

 causes may be assigned to account for this fact. First, there is the 

 preconceived but erroneous idea of the method of creation derived 

 from a misconception of the first chapter of Genesis. Secondly, there 

 is the unfortunate but very general want of any scientific training, 

 not only among the clergy, but in the public generally ; and, as a re- 

 sult, there is that absence of a due power of appreciation of the argu- 

 ments of the scientific man, which is so conspicuous in their style of 

 reasoning 



In order, therefore, that the proof of the wisdom and beneficence 

 of the Almighty, as shown in the processes of evolution, may not be 

 considered as based on unsound premises, it will be desirable to point 

 out the untenableness of the present theological position, as well as 

 the grounds upon which evolution is founded ; and which will, let us 

 hope, be soon recognized as incontrovertible by all who seek the truth 

 in earnest. Until comparatively recent times the book of Genesis 

 was supposed to reveal in its first chapter an explicit account of the 

 origin of living things, namely, by direct creative fiats of the Al- 

 mighty. All the known animals and plants being far fewer than at 

 the present day, their differences were more pronounced than their 

 resemblances. Each animal and plant was observed to bring forth 



1 From his recently-published work, " Evolution and Keligion." 



