tion, from the time he acquired a soul. Mr.
Wallace, rejecting the action of one Supreme Intelligence for everything
but the origin of universal forces and laws, "Contemplates the
possibility that the development of the essentially human portions of
man's structure and intellect may have been determined by the directing
influence of some higher intelligent beings acting through natural and
universal laws;"[13] _i. e._, the gods of the old heathen nations. And
so after twenty-two centuries wandering over the world, we have got back
to where Democritus started from--to pure old heathenism.

After such a history of the theory of evolution, and in presence of such
contradictory presentations by its advocates, I need scarcely say that
it is by no means an established scientific principle, were it not for
the insolent manner in which some of them assert it as scientifically
demonstrated; and denounce the Bible doctrine of creation as mere
superstition, "A feather bed of respectable and respected tradition,"
and warn off Christians from any attempt to investigate theories of
cosmogony; and overbear the ignorant by the array of the names of men of
science who give their sanction to some phase of the theory. But let it
be borne in mind that no well-established scientific principle, no
demonstrated law, exhibits such contradictory and conflicting phases as
those we have just witnessed. The laws of gravitation, or of chemical
affinity, for instance, offer no such contradictions of their adherents;
because they are founded on facts, while evolution is a mere notion,
founded on ignorance and error, as we shall presently see. Accordingly,
by far the greater number of the greatest scientists oppose it, as
utterly unscientific, and have recorded their opposition, and the
reasons for it. Sir John Herschel and Sir Wm. Thompson, among
astronomers, have proclaimed its antagonism to the facts of physical
astronomy. No new facts subversive of the foundations of faith in God as
recognized in the universe by Bacon, Newton, Boyle, Descartes, Leibnitz,
Pascal, Paley and Bell, have been discovered by such scientists as
Whewell, Sedgwick, Brewster, Faraday, Hugh Miller, or our American
geologists, Dawson, Hitchcock, and Dana. Nor have the deliberate and
expanded demonstrations of its unscientific character by the late
lamented Agassiz been ever fairly met, much less overturned. I refer to
these honored names for the benefit of that large class who