290 
Reddie has called attention. With regard to the expression “ God’s ways are 
not onr ways,” I have quoted that twice ; and one or two gentlemen have 
found fault with me for it. I may have adopted the words and made them 
applicable to my own purpose, and perhaps that was wrong. As to anthropo- 
morphism, Mr. Reddie rather found fault with me for avoiding anthropo- 
morphic language as far as I could. If we are to attempt at all to speak of 
the Deity and His ways, we have no other language but the human one ; and 
we cannot help speaking anthropomorphically, as the Bible does throughout. 
But I especially avoided that. I have done it before, and I have been found 
fault with for doing it 
Mr. Reddie. — On that point I was really answering Mr. Row. 
Mr. Henslow. — With regard to evolution, I did not anticipate the neces- 
sity for going deeply into it ; but if you take the statistics of scientific men, 
you will find that a majority of them would be in favour of it. Both Mr. 
Reddie and the Chairman used the word “ proof ” a good deal, in regard to 
matters where there is no proof at all, and which are not capable of it. But 
are there not some things which can be believed on other grounds ? Urn 
doubtedly if you could have demonstration, you ought to have it ; but there 
are such things as probabilities, and there may be every degree of pro- 
bability from zero up to moral conviction, as Bishop Butler says, where there 
is no proof at all 
The Chairman. — I quite admit that probability may be so strong as to 
amount to proof, but you have not established even probable evidence. 
Mr. Reddie. — That is the only proof I thought of. I did not mean 
mathematical demonstration, which is out of the question. 
Mr. Henslow. — Then the question is, what evidence have we got to 
support the theory which will make it probable ? I think that can be 
arranged under several heads. Take geology. Our Chairman went into 
that, and argued that geology does not support progression in the animal 
and vegetable kingdom. But what do we find to be the case ? We find 
that the lower animals are at the bottom of the series in the scale of creation, 
as shown by geology, and as we come up we find the higher ones coming in 
one after another 
The Chairman. — That has been denied by Huxley himself, and it is a 
point which even Darwin felt he could not stand upon. He feels that the 
successive creation theory is gone. Year after year geology is going in a con- 
trary direction to that theory. 
Mr. Henslow. —I do not think Sir Charles Lyell is of that opinion yet ; 
but at any rate I am not very well up upon this subject, and I do not like to 
speak dogmatically. I have not read Huxley’s latest argument ; but so far 
as I understand opinions now, I do not think these theories have been set 
aside. Take the development in vegetable life. You have the lowest forms 
coming on before the higher ones, and that gives some ground for an 
argument founded upon analogy, as is shown by Herbert Spencer in his 
work On First Principles. As to pangenesis, which our Chairman has 
referred to, I will not say whether I believe in it or not (hear, hear) ; but 
