48 



of revulsion from this last conclusion. At the same time, though it is an 

 unquestionable fact that there is more than one gap that has never yet been 

 bridged over,'"' it does not follow that we can say there is no truth whatever 

 in this doctrine of evolution. Nor do I conceive that this doctrine or theory, 

 if ever established as physically true, would at all derogate from the idea of 

 the Creator's power or prescience. With regard to Mr. Lewes's views, I 

 could have wished that Mr. Henslow had dealt with them more at length. 

 Mr. Lewes holds that type is the result of certain concurrent conditions. 

 But I should like to ask him, what are those conditions. They must be 

 something or nothing. If they are nothing, how can there be any result of 

 them 1 On the other hand, if they are anything, they must come more or 

 less within the realm of law ; and I am perfectly clear that if we believe in 

 law at all, it must take us back to antecedent mind, and to the old-fashioned 

 argument from design. (Cheers.) 



Mr. Henslow. — In replying upon this discussion, first let me thank those 

 members who have addressed us, and who have spoken so kindly of my 

 paper. I came here to-night, as is common to all of us who have papers to 

 read, fully prepared to be well beaten and thrashed ; but I do not think I 

 have got so much of it as I might have expected. In the first remarks that 

 were made to-night upon my paper. Dr. Rigg alluded to the gap existing 

 between the inorganic and the organic world. But I have not touched\ipon 

 that subject at all. I have gone upon the assumption that the theory of 

 evolution was simply concerned with living creatures. I have not touched 

 upon other evidence at all ; for I said at once, " We have no evidence 

 whatever to show how life came into the world, and it is preposterous to 

 make any such attempt." Professor Huxley has utterly exploded the idea 

 of the settlings of hay and other things giving rise to independent life ; that 

 has completely dropped out of the scientific mind of the present day, and we 

 go back now to complete ignorance. Dr. Darwin simply assumes that we 

 have life, and we have had it ; but as to how it came into existence, the 

 study of nature does not aff'ord one shadow of a solution : consequently I 

 left that subject out of the paper altogether, and simply say now, in reference 

 thereto, that I do not know anything about it, except that God created it ; 

 and I do not see anything opening out to guide us to the discovery from 

 nature alone, of what is the nature and what was the origin of life. With 

 regard to the idea which runs through structure and indicates design in the 



* Up to the present, the investigations which have been carried on by 

 Professor Huxley and others have failed to prove any connecting link 

 between man and the rest of the animal creation ; and to use the words, so 

 far as I can remember them, recently addressed to me by one of the most 

 learned and indefatigable members of the Microscopic Society, — ^" We can, 

 and have, classified the whole of the animal kingdom that we are acquainted 

 with. We have put all the different animals into their respective places, and 

 have constantly got hold of man to put him into his place, but he would 

 not fit in anywhere — there is such an immeasurable gulf between him, with 

 all his attributes, and the rest of the animal creation."-- Ed. 



