27 



United States, Germany and England, for in these coun- 

 tries many of the leading scientists have adopted the 

 theory. of evolution. Lyell, Huxley, Wallace, Lubbock, 

 Vogt, Haeckel, Gray, Draper, Wyman and scores of 

 others as eminent are Darwinists. 



In England, recently, Agassiz has been spoken of as 

 a " mere specialist,'" and in this country he has been the 

 subject of sympathy for " rigidity of mind which prevent- 

 ed him revising his opinions." 



There was a time in France when men of science con- 

 sidered belief in God the mark of a vulgar mind, and when, 

 as has been said, " infidelity was prattled by fops just as 

 superstition was prattled by devotees."' There yet exists 

 something of that spirit — a relic of the intolprance of the 

 Middle Ages. There is a bigotry in science as well as in 

 religion. Many there yet are, even among the educated, 

 who upon the announcement of a startling discovery, the 

 upturning of some old superstition, the proclamation of a 

 new and plausible theory rush to cry 



Eureka, it is clear 

 When but some false mirage rises near. 



In its advance, science like an army leaves its worn out 

 material behind it, and here and there a lame veteran, 

 too old and stiff to keep up with the rear guard, who once 

 marched at the very head of the column. The Ptolmaic 

 theory was better than Atlas with his broad shoulders 

 standing upon the back of a turtle which floated on a 

 shoreless ocean. But Copernicus struggled to the front 

 after great labor and Ptolmey fell behind. It was better 

 to have the sun in the centre of our solar system than the 

 earth, even though Copernicus had all the planets mov- 

 ing in circular, instead of elliptical, orbits. Kepler pushed 

 ahead of Copernicus, then fell behind Newton, and even 

 Newton made mistakes which later workers have correct- 

 ed. So science advances. Each builder lays his course 

 in a tower for all the world to look at in after times, but 

 each in his negligence or ignorance leaves his unused 

 stone and mortar for the next to clear away, — his faults 

 of unskillful or hasty workmanship for the next to repair 



