which asserts that man has developed out of lower, and, in the first place, out of ape-like mammals, is a deductive law inseparably connected with the general inductive law” (HÄCKEL's History of Creation, vol. ii. p. 357). The theory of man's origin from apes is not based upon direct experience. Merely deductive conclusions from circumstantial evidence are sometimes lawful. We do not know all about the worlds beyond the sweep of the telescope; but so firmly is the theory of gravitation established that we believe that, if a new world should be discovered, it would be found to be under the law of gravitation. If you will prove by induction the system of evolution as thoroughly as the Copernican system has been proved by induction, you may then fill gaps by deduction. Astronomers predict sometimes that eclipses will occur, and they do occur according to prediction; and we think, therefore, that we have ascertained something conclusive as to the mechanism of the heavens. If evolutionists can by selective breeding produce from the same stock two varieties so widely differing that their crossing will produce sterile hybrids, then I will say that they have a scientific right to fill up by deduction the gaps in the direct evidences of evolution, and not till then. [Applause.] Professor Häckel further concedes, 45. That "most naturalists, even at the present day, are inclined to give up the attempt at natural explanation" of the origin of life," and take refuge in the miracle of inconceivable creation" (HÄCKEL's History of Creation, vol. i. p. 327). The trouble with your small philosopher in Massachusetts and England is, that he out-Darwins Darwin and out-Häckels Häckel. It is important, at times, that the pulpit should show that it is not afraid of these topics; and you will notice, that, in this Lectureship, the theme of evolution is not skipped. You will pardon me one further word on Bathybius, which Professor St. George Mivart calls a seamare's nest. "No more of that, Hal, an thou lovest me. Häckel has minutely figured Bathybius in the plates of his most elaborate works. Huxley named it from Häckel, Bathybius Häckelii. Strauss rested on Bathybius the central arch of against the supernatural. his argument It was the haughty claim of Huxley and Strauss and Häckel, 46. That Bathybius is an organism without organs. 47. That it performs the acts of nutrition and propagation. 48. That, with other organisms like itself, it stands at the head of the terrestrial history of the development of life. 49. That it spans the chasm between the living and the not living. 50. That it renders belief in miracle impossible. Häckel makes Bathybius a stem from which all terrestrial life divides, and comes to its present state (History of Creation, vol. i. pp. 184, 344, and vol. ii. p. 53). It would not be worth much for me here to cut down this or that bough in the great tree; but if, with the latest scientific intelligence, I may strike at its bottom stem, Bathybius, I shall have done something. You must not think that students of religious science have no right to be interested in this classical organism. We have heard of it in theological works. We had it thrust in our faces as proof that a miracle is impossible. We therefore are interested, when, walking past our bookstores, we can pick up the yet fresh sheets of the American Journal of Science and Arts, and turn to a passage on Bathybius in an article on the voyage of the ship Challenger. Will gentlemen here do themselves the justice, and this topic the justice, to read this authoritative intelligence (October number, pp. 267, 268)? You will find there this closing concession: 51. That Bathybius has been discovered in 1875 by the ship Challenger to be hear, O heavens! and give ear, O earth!— sulphate of lime; and that, when dissolved, it crystallizes as gypsum. [Applause.] |