DARWINISM AND EVOLUTION. 5 



It has been discovered by modern theologians that in the sense 

 of ancient writers " a day " means a great many millions of years ; 

 — that light, any more than colour, or fragrance, or music, which 

 are all effects of matter in motion upon a sentient organism, 

 could not have been created before the matter which moves and 

 the organ which perceives ; — that the fruit-trees of this planet 

 were not perhaps, after all, made before the sun, moon, and stars; 

 —that vegetable structures were not necessarily created before 

 animals, because the reproduction of some plants depends upon 

 the visits of insects, and because there are some organisms that 

 are partly vegetable and partly animal ; — that birds did not appear 

 on the earth before reptiles, but after them ; — and that Adam was 

 not the first man ; for, apart from the abundant and conclusive 

 scientific proof of this fact, it is now remembered that Cain 

 would hardly have been marked, " lest any finding him should kill 

 him," had there been only one other man upon earth, and that 

 man Cain's own father. 



But if the Hebrews traced their descent to some semi-divine 

 and not very remote ancestors, so likewise did other races. 



All the founders of the Saxon Kingdoms of this country claimed 

 descent from Baeldaeg, who was the son of Woden, the father of 

 the gods, and the creator of the world. Thus there are eight 

 genealogies in the Saxon Chronicles such as this : — Cerdic, who 

 landed in England from five ships, was the son of Elesa, Elesa of 

 Esla, Esla of Giwis, Giwis of Wig, Wig of Freawine, Freawine of 

 Frithugar, Frithugar of Brond, Brond of Baeldaeg, Baeldaeg of Woden. 



Later, however, after England was converted to Christianity, it 

 was taught that Woden, no longer a god, was himself descended, 

 as shown by a full genealogical tree, from Sceaf, who was the son 

 of Noah, and who, for obvious convenience, was said to have been 

 born in the ark. 



And now that we have been driven to admit that neither Adam 

 nor Baeldaeg was the first of our race, Darwin stands forth, and 

 claims from us the belief that man, instead of having fallen from 

 a pristine state of bodily, intellectual, and moral perfection, has 

 been slowly and painfully evolved from some lowly ancestral form, 

 the common parent of all vertebrates, by the prolonged action of 

 surrounding forces or laws, the chief of which is the law of Natural 

 Selection. 



Is this doctrine true ? Can it be proved ? Must we believe it ? 



Truth — evidence — belief ; what are these ? 



Truth is the exact correspondence between the subjective order 

 of our conceptions and the objective order of the relations among 

 things — between thoughts and facts. Truth is a correct interpre- 

 tation of the causes of our sensations ; a harmony between our 

 ideas and the surrounding coexistences and successions that 

 occasion these ideas. 



