order to accept, not a truth--not even a theory--but a mere hypothesis.
Professor Huxley says, "There is no fault to be found with Darwin's
method, but it is another thing whether he has fulfilled all the
conditions imposed by that method. Is it satisfactorily proved that
species may be originated by selection? That none of the phenomena
exhibited by the species are inconsistent with the origin of the species
in this way? If these questions can be answered in the affirmative,
Mr. Darwin's view steps out of the ranks of hypothesis into that of
theories; but so long as the evidence adduced falls short of enforcing
that affirmative, so long, to our minds, the new doctrine must be
content to remain among the former--an extremely valuable, and in the
highest degree probable, doctrine; indeed the only extant hypothesis
which is worth anything in a scientific point of view; but still a
hypothesis, and not a theory of species." "After much consideration,"
he adds, "and assuredly with no bias against Darwin's views, it is our
clear conviction that, as the evidence now stands, it is not absolutely
proven that a group of animals, having all the characters exhibited
by species in nature, has ever been originated by selection, whether
artificial or natural."

But Darwin is absurd as well as groundless. He announces two laws,
which, in his judgment, explain the development of man from the lowest
form of animal life, viz., natural selection and sexual selection. The
latter has been abandoned by the modern believers in evolution, but
two illustrations, taken from Darwin's "Descent of Man," will show his
unreliability as a guide to the young. On page 587 of the 1874 edition,
he tries to explain man's superior mental strength (a proposition more
difficult to defend to-day than in Darwin's time). His theory is that,
"the struggle between the males for the possession of the females"
helped to develop the male mind and that this superior strength was