abandon his idea
that life may come from dead matter, and is not disposed to accept of
Mr. Darwin's explanation of the origin of life by the Creator having, at
first, breathed it into one or more forms. While accepting of Mr.
Darwin's theory of a common descent for man with all other creatures, he
not only differs from him as to the beginning, but he admits that there
is no gradual transition from the one to the other. He acknowledges that
the structural differences between man and even the highest apes are
great and significant; and yet because there is no sign of gradual
transition between the gorilla, and the orang, and the gibbon, he
infers that they all had a common origin; whereas the more natural
conclusion from the facts would be that they had separate beginnings.
Mr. Wallace, whose claims are admitted to be equal to these of Mr.
Darwin, as the propounder of the theory of the origin of species by
Natural Selection, has firmly asserted that, with all its resources,
Natural Selection is utterly inadequate to account for the origin and
structure of the human race.[379] Thus they go, biting and devouring
each other, until at last it becomes a reproduction of the Kilkenny
cats, and there is nothing left but the tails. We have only to wait, and
the current Infidel theory will certainly be exposed and demolished next
year, by the author of some equally impossible theory.

Not merely individual scientists, but the most learned societies have
blundered. "Has not the French Academy pronounced against the use of
quinine and vaccination, against lightning rods and steam engines? Has
not Reaumer suppressed Peysonnel's 'Essay on Corals,' because he thought
it was madness to maintain their animal nature? Had not his learned
brethren decreed, in 1802, that there were no meteors, although a short
time later two thousand fell in one department alone; and had they not
more recently still received the news of ether being useful as an
anaesthetic with sure and unanimous condemnation?"[380]

If space permitted we could go over the circle of the sciences, and show
that a similar state of uncertainty and exposure to error exists in them
all. We have, however, confined our attention to those whose certainty
is now most loudly vaunted, and whose theories are most largely used as
the basis of Infidelity. Nor have we by any means exhausted the list of
errors and contradictions of these. A volume as large as this would be
required to pres