seems somewhat grotesque,* and I prefer resting in the 
statement of a special creation, without prying into its 
method. 
In writing thus, I am well aware that I have been dealing 
with subjects which do not belong to me, and I have no claim 
whatsoever to weigh the balance of evidence as it ought to 
appear to the minds of others. The knowledge of all of us is 
but limited, even in those subjects which we know best, and 
two men equally honest, and equally truth-seeking, may 
legitimately entertain different views as to what appears the 
most probable conclusion in matters in which certainty, or 
what practically amounts to certainty, cannot be reached. 
To take a purely fictitious illustration, suppose that some 
physiologist who had no great knowledge of physics framed 
some theory of the upward growth of trees in spite of gravity, 
a theory involving the hypothesis of certain physical actions. 
Some physicist might see that the assumed physical actions 
were, if not contrary to physical principles, at least very 
difficult to reconcile with them. He, in his turn, might frame 
a theory which seemed all very beautiful from a physical point 
of view, but which involved physiological assumptions which 
the physiologist would regard as highly improbable. Each 
man, seeing only a portion of the whole truth, would naturally 
think his own theory highly probable, or perhaps nearly 
established. But, of course, both could not be true, and it 
might be that neither was true : yet the conclusion of each 
might be justified according to his own knowledge. 
But then comes the question. If each of these men knew of 
the opinion of the other, how ought his views as to what was 
most likely true to be modified ? Each of us knows such a 
small fraction of the sum total of human knowledge that we 
are all, in great measure, dependent, and rightly dependent, 
on authority, on the knowledge of our fellow-creatures as to 
subjects with which we are but imperfectly acquainted. 
Authority then takes the place of direct knowledge, and 
instead of weighing the evidence derived from phenomena 
which we ourselves have investigated, or which we are able to 
follow in the investigations of others, we must estimate, as 
best may be, the weight to be assigned to authority. What 
that weight should be depends very materially upon the 
* Of course, it is not to the combination in itself that this is meant to 
apply, hut to the combination in our attempted reasoning ; in other words, 
to the endeavour to infer from merely natural laws what was the condition 
anterior to the stage at which a supernatural power is supposed to have 
intervened. 
