Year: 1876




December:


We are not among those who depre-
Gated Mr.. Huxley's late visit to America,
and certainly not among those who regret
that he came. There was an indefinite
dread of the man among many religious
circles, as If he were not only an enemy,
but very powerful enemy, who was
pretty sure to do mischief The result,
we are sure, not only disappointed them,
but failed to give the expected support
to those who have been inclined to favor
the Darwinian hypothesis.


The first lecture introduced trick
quite unworthy fearless man of science,
viz, that of making Milton bear the onus
of the Mosaic account of the Creation.
To whip the Bible around the shoulders
of the great poet, and assume to fight a
man, when, in truth, he intended to fight
what all believers agree in regarding as
a sacred book, was not a pretty or man.
ly thing to do. 1t was cunning per-
formance, we admit, but it was the per-
formance of pettifogger, and detracted
very materially from the popular respect
which had been accorded to the man and
his utterances.


1t is to be presumed that Mr.. Darwin's
principal apostle would present his facts
and his arguments in the most convinc-
ing way possible to him. He took three
evenings for the task, and had the field
all to himself; but we do not hesitate to
say that he failed in the demonstrative
evidence" offered in his closing lecture
to fulfill the promises made in the first
two. Had he demonstrated the sound
ness of his theory, people would have be-
lieved in it. That the most of them did
not, ought to be regarded by Mr.. Huxley
as evidence-worthy, at least, of his con-
sideration-that his demOnstrative
evidence" demonstrated nothing. For.
let it be remembered, the religious mind
of the country is not as much afraid OF
the theory of evolution as it was, and is
not proof against conviction, as it might
once have been. 1t has apprehended
and accepted the fact that It takes as
great power to originate an order of be-
ings through evolution as by a direct act
of creation, and that to bind up all the
possibilities and potencies of life in pro-
tOplasmic masses, or ascidian cells, is as
marked an exhibition of Almightiness
and infinite ingenuity as it would be to
speak into existence the perfected crea-
lures which we know, and which we are.


We do not hesitate to say that the au-
diences which assembled to listen to Mr..
Huxley were tractable audiences. They
were not only tractable, but they were
capable. They were fully adequate to
the understanding of his theory, and the
weighing of his evidences and arguments;
and we have yet to learn that he largely,
or even appreciably, increased the num-
Der of his disciples. Men went away
feeling that, after all, the theory of evo-
luton was nothing but theory,-that
it is still so much an hypothesis that it
can lay no valid claim to place in
science. Certainly, Mr.. Huxley shook
no soundly reasoning mans belief in God
as the author of all life. "In the be-
ginning, God created the heaven and the
earth" When that beginning was
how many ages that beginning covered
nobody pretends at this day to know.
Every body knows, however, that stream
can rise no higher than its fountain. If
the conduits and receptacles into which
that stream has been poured are capable
of retaining it, and incapable of conduct
ing it further, it may not rise go high. 1t
seems to us repugnant to human reason
that low form of life, uninformed by a
higher life, has the power to evolve a
form of life higher than itself. There is
not an analogy of nature which does not
initiate against such a conclusion. There
are none of the lessons of science which
do not lead directly away from it. God
may work toward creative ends through
processes of evolution, or he may not. A
horse may have been derived from a
three-toed animal, one of whose toe-nails
spread into hoof, with its wonderful
tarsus and metatarsus, or he may not. A
man may have descended, or assembled.
from monkey, or he may have been
created by divine fat. 1t matters very
little, so long as God is recognized as the
author of life, and the designer Of its
multitudinous forms.