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The multitude has either little time, or scanty inclination, 
to sift and to investigate. In fact, the multitude is not a 
thinker. It delights in being thought for ; and wherever it 
finds thoughts which arouse its sluggishness by their eccen- 
tricity, novelty, or plausibility, it is apt to testify its appro- 
bation. How can that sluggishness be more effectually 
aroused than by having views presented to it, one single 
glimpse of which it never had before, and which are at the 
same time of the most exciting character — altogether foreign 
to its previous impressions ? Where the wonder that 
audiences are attracted, like moths, to the new light ? There 
is nothing surprising in that. But what is surprising, is the 
adhesion of any competent thinker ; for there is nothing 
remarkable in the logic, or perhaps novel in the facts : it is 
the assumption, the inference, derived from the orator's ima- 
gination, that beguiles, and is altogether unworthy the table 
of science. 
There is a portion of these, forming a class of earnest minds 
seemingly devoted to discovery in pure zeal for truth. It is 
to the teachings of such I would call attention in the present 
paper. For the most part, it is composed of men of high 
scientific knowledge, who, nevertheless, put prominently 
forward what I conceive to be a very grievous misapplication 
of physical studies — that the deductions they draw from their 
discoveries are in opposition to our faith. This is announced 
without scruple as without proof ; yet I doubt not, in most 
cases, under the perfectly honest conviction that they are 
correcting erroneous views. 
I will endeavour on the present occasion to show that its 
leading doctrine — the evolution of life out of the material 
world — is a pure fiction, at utter variance with true inductive 
philosophy. Whether I succeed or not, I shall be well 
satisfied if the attempt call abler minds to the discussion. 
In attempting to establish this conclusion, I must refer to 
some modern works, full of talent and of truths, but false in 
deduction, which, from the abilities and the labour apparent 
on almost every page, are calculated to mislead to a very 
important extent. 
A few of even professed writers on the subject seem rather 
to avoid discussion on the actual origin of life. They 
“ blunder round about a meaning." They examine the husk 
and the shell with great perseverance and no little skill ; but 
they penetrate not to the kernel. With the microscope at 
one end of creation, and the telescope at the other, their time 
is devoted to experiments upon, and observations of, the 
inorganic alone ; whence, as we may reasonably suppose from 
