that
even this device was inadequate. The six ages, with their six special
creations, could no longer be maintained, when it was discovered that
species, slowly emerged in one age, reached a culmination in a second,
and gradually died out in a third: this overlapping from age to age
would not only have demanded creations, but re-creations also. He
affirmed that there had been a deluge, which covered the whole earth
above the tops of the highest mountains, and that the waters of this
flood were removed by a wind. Correct ideas respecting the dimensions
of the atmosphere, and of the sea, and of the operation of evaporation,
proved how untenable these statements are. Of the progenitors of the
human race, he declared that they had come from their Maker's hand
perfect, both in body and mind, and had subsequently experienced a fall.
He is now considering how best to dispose of the evidence continually
accumulating respecting the savage condition of prehistoric man.

Is it at all surprising that the number of those who hold the opinions
of the Church in light esteem should so rapidly increase? How can that
be received as a trustworthy guide in the invisible, which falls into so
many errors in the visible? How can that give confidence in the moral,
the spiritual, which has so signally failed in the physical? It is not
possible to dispose of these conflicting facts as "empty shadows," "vain
devices," "fictions coming from knowledge falsely so called," "errors
wearing the deceitful appearance of truth," as the Church stigmatizes
them. On the contrary, they are stern witnesses, bearing emphatic
and unimpeachable testimony against the ecclesiastical claim to
infallibility, and fastening a conviction of ignorance and blindness
upon her.

Convicted of so many errors, the papacy makes no attempt at explanation.
It ignores the whole matter Nay, more, relying on the efficacy
of audacity, though confronted by these facts, it lays claim to
infallibility.

SEPARATION OF CATHOLICISM AND CIVILIZATION. But, to the pontiff, no
other rights can be conceded than those he can establish at the bar of
Reason. He cannot claim infallibility in religious affairs, and
decline it in scientific. Infallibility embraces all things. It implies
omniscience. If it holds good for theology, it necessarily holds good
for science. How is it possible to coordinate the infallibility of the
papacy with the well-known errors into which it has fallen?

Does it n