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as an absolute truth and as the proofs and evidences of an important stage in 
man’s development, I came to look upon the matter as rather a serious question 
which ought to be taken up. The question was a very simple one. It was, 
— “ Are these stones which have been found, and which have been made so 
much of, remarkable as giving genuine indications of human workmanship, or 
are they altogether natural ?” It was, however, a question which required 
much examination ; and what was the result ? I challenged the opinion of 
chemists and mineralogists, divesting it for the moment of all the archaeological 
and all the geological arguments. Here were certain Stones produced — take 
the beautiful collection in the Stone museum at Salisbury as an example — the 
question was, Were they so many actual proofs of the great antiquity of man, 
going back to the period of the Drift, which is unquestionably a period long 
ages ago. Were these specimens so produced authentic or not 1 After a long 
course of examination, extending over the valleys of England and France and 
of other countries, we could only come to the conclusion that these stones were 
naturally formed. I will tell you the mode in which we arrived at that conclu- 
sion. These stones are peculiar, and at first sight you would say, “ They are 
artificially produced but when you see a graduated series of them, from the 
rough boulder slightly chipped, up to the very finest specimen, what is the 
result ? Why, that they are only natural productions. There is the javelin- 
stone type, as well as those of the oval form or pattern ; but they are found 
universally in every quarter of the world, and everywhere with the same typical 
form, on the mountain-tops, in the valley-beds, in the soil of the arable fields, 
along the coast of North Devon and Cornwall, and on Salisbury Plain. You 
can pick them up in these districts over an area of thirty miles, and they are 
of exactly the same form, whether found in the valleys of England, on the 
mountains of Lebanon, Syria, Arabia, or in the north of Europe ; everywhere 
the same type is followed exactly. Of course the answer is, “ They were 
made on the same plan everywhere but can we reason in that way, throwing 
overboard the fact that the very nature and chemical properties of the stone 
will naturally produce that form ? Why should we bring in the savage ? It 
seems to me that such a course is to abandon common sense or argument 
altogether. All these stones, flint chips, knives more especially, as I have 
already said, are typical in form, not only in their size and gradations, but even 
in their surface-markings. You can pick them up in London, indeed all 
through the valley of the Thames, and their form is the same as when you 
get them out of the Drift : they correspond exactly. They are, therefore, 
nothing more than natural stone curiosities. I have challenged chemists 
and mineralogists on the point, and I know that a large proportion of the 
mineralogists agree with me. This shows how cautious theologians ought to 
be before they accept new facts and dovetail them in with their reason- 
ings. They ought to be sure as to what is really going on, and how much 
depends upon it. (Hear, hear.) The same thing applies to Darwinism. 
For myself, though I am not an able student of the theory, I see nothing in 
Darwinism but mere hypothesis, with nothing to support it. There is 
nothing that I know of as a naturalist which can account for and bridge over 
