ecame such as to permit of the development of life? Let
us put the question with the reverence due to a faith and culture in
which we all were cradled, and which are the undeniable historic
antecedents of our present enlightenment. I say, let us put the
question reverently, but let us also put it clearly and definitely.
There are the strongest grounds for believing that during a certain
period of its history the earth was not, nor was it fit to be, the
theatre of life. Whether this was ever a nebulous period, or merely a
molten period, does not signify much; and if we revert to the nebulous
condition, it is because the probabilities are really on its side. Our
question is this: Did creative energy pause until the nebulous matter
had condensed, until the earth had been detached, until the solar fire
had so far withdrawn from the earth's vicinity as to permit a crust to
gather round the planet? Did it wait until the air was isolated;
until the seas were formed; until evaporation, condensation, and the
descent of rain had begun; until the eroding forces of the atmosphere
had weathered and decomposed the molten rocks so as to form soils;
until the sun's rays had become so tempered by distance, and by waste,
as to be chemically fit for the decompositions necessary to vegetable
life? Having waited through these aeons until the proper conditions
had set in, did it send the flat forth, 'Let there be Life!'? These
questions define a hypothesis not without its difficulties, but the
dignity of which in relation to the world's knowledge was demonstrated
by the nobleness of the men whom it sustained.

Modern scientific thought is called upon to decide between this
hypothesis and another; and public thought generally will afterwards
be called upon to do the same. But, however the convictions of
individuals here and there may be influenced, the process must be slow
and secular which commends the hypothesis of Natural Evolution to the
public mind. For what are the core and essence of this hypothesis?
Strip it naked, and you stand face to face with the notion that not
alone the more ignoble forms of animalcular or animal life, not alone
the nobler forms of the horse and lion, not alone the exquisite and
wonderful mechanism of the human body, but that the human mind
itself--emotion, intellect, will, and all their phenomena--were once
latent in a fiery cloud. Surely the mere statement of such a notion
is more than a refutation.