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 ? 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'upon 
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 afford 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. 
