4 EVOLUTION AN ANCIENT IDEA. 



alleged to be legitimately drawn from scientific 

 investigation. But I do not hesitate to maintain 

 that, instead of the conditions of true science, the 

 doctrine of Evolution rests mainly on conceit and 

 assumption. Its inductions have far outrun facts, 

 and the conclusions deduced from those inductions 

 are recklessly sweeping. 



While no pious plea, or any other consideration, 

 ought to be permitted to influence the conclusions 

 which may be justly and rigorously deducible from 

 scientifically established truths, we must resist all 

 speculations, how much soever vaunted, which it 

 may be sought to impose upon us in the name of 

 science — though without the sanction of science — and 

 by the assumed authority of peculiarly constituted 

 minds. 



The remarks I am about to make will show how 

 far we may be justified in rejecting such speculations 

 as those comprised in the Theory of Evolution. 



Man and animals were not originally created in 

 their present form, but have been evolved, in the 

 course of successive descent, by gradual growth, 

 development and transmutation of structure, 

 throughout a long period of time, from some simple 

 living being which itself had been spontaneously 

 generated according to natural physico-chemical 

 laws : — Such is the general expression of a very 

 ancient idea, and one which has often been re- 

 produced in a more or less modified form. Not to 



