282 
Such a faith as this is^ we know, considered folly by Pro- 
fessor Haeckel, who says: — ^Htis much more to my individual 
taste to be the more highly-developed descendant of a 
primaeval ape ancestor, who, in the struggle for existence, 
had developed progressively from lower mammals, as they 
from still lower vertebrates, than the degraded descendants 
of an Adam, god-like but debased by the Fall/^* Well, let 
it be so, as far as the professor is concerned. We are content 
to rest our faith on divine revelation rather than on the 
assumptions of science falsely so called. We would, however, 
ask the professor, and those who accept his teaching, what 
benefit can accrue to the human family by believing that man 
has been evolved out of a race of brutes — may we not say a 
race of beasts ? Can the belief in the bestial descent of 
man even tend to raise him in the intellectual and moral 
scale ? We trow not. Will such a view of man^s origin and 
destiny ever make a man one whit the kinder or purer ? We 
think not. Will the belief that man has sprung from a lower 
race of animals, and that he must of necessity share the 
fate of the lower, ever tend to elevate an individual or a 
nation ? We trow not. But how different will be the effect 
of the doctrine of a special creation ! Does a man believe 
that he has a noble pedigree ? Then he will endeavour not to 
dishonour it. Does a man believe that he has a noble destiny? 
Then he will endeavour to live as becomes a being who has. 
Does a man believe that his race had such a noble beginning, 
and may have such a glorious end ? Then he will seek to 
teach the same faith to all those with whom he comes in con- 
tact. And thus the individual, and the race may be led to 
raise themselves to their proper level, — a true and noble 
development — the level of a higher — the highest — even God, 
in whom we live, and move, and have our being.^^ 
The Chairman (Mr. J. E. Howard, F.K.S.) : I am sure that all present 
will agree with me when I say that we are exceedingly obliged to Mr. 
Hassell for having, in his able paper, summarised many of the most powerful 
arguments against the doctrine of evolution. I agree with the whole of 
what he has read, with the exception of the little note that appears 
on the first page, and I look upon that in the light of a “ sop thrown to 
Cerberus,” though I doubt very much whether Cerberus is likely to take it. 
* The Evolution of Man, vol. ii. 540. 
