74 



proper arena for discussing the value of this most strange and 

 startling theory. 



, I need not, I am sure, in an audience like the present, define 

 the peculiar scientific views which we understand by the term 

 Darwinism. In his work on the Origin of Species by Natural 

 Selection/^ Mr. Darwin promulgated the theory, which had been 

 previously put forth by Lamarck, that all species, instead of 

 having been independently created, and possessing an inde- 

 pendent existence, had been gradually developed out of other 

 forms. In this work he merely hinted at the application of his 

 hypothesis to man, but in his recently published work he does 

 not hesitate to assert that man, the wonder and glory of the 

 universe, has descended from the stem of old world monkeys, 

 that he must be classed with the quadrumana, the most imme- 

 diate ancestor from which this descent can be traced^ being an 

 anthropomorphous Ape ! 



This theory abolishes the idea of creation, in the ordinary 

 sense of the term. It, at most, concedes to Nature the faculty 

 of causing one species to spring from another, and it consequently 

 excludes all direct, personal, and miraculous intervention of a 

 creating power. 



Here I wish to observe, that, although a decided and most un- 

 compromising opponent of Darwinism, I have no a priori objec- 

 tion to raise against the theory, and I trust I shall say nothing 

 to-night to justify my being classed amongst those whom Mr. 

 Darwin describes as " curiously illustrating the blindness of pre- 

 conceived opinion,^^ or amongst those whom Professor Huxley 

 describes as " contenting themselves with smothering the inves- 

 tigating spirit under the feather-bed of respected and respectable 

 tradition. Deprecating all idea of stirring up the odium thco- 

 lof/LCUin, I consider the doctrine of evolution as a legitimate 

 subject for scientific inquiry. I acknowledge, moreover, the 

 fairness and perfect honesty with which its author has handled the 

 subject, and I recognize also the deep knowledge of natural his- 

 tory which the "Descent of Man^^ displays; and from its 

 charm of style and elegance of diction, I am not surprised 

 that it has become equally popular in the drawing-room of 

 the votary of fashion, as in the study of the naturalist and the 

 theologian. 



I should not reject the Darwinian view of the origin of man, 

 • from any fancied notion that its adoption was derogatory to our 

 dignity and inconsistent with man^s position in the order of 

 Nature, a notion which was evidently held by the poor deluded 

 creature whose suicide was lately recorded in the public papers, 

 and upon whose person was found a document, stating that his 

 existence was no longer to be tolerated, since Mr. Darwin^s 



