Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 5.djvu/331

Rh We shall expect these new iconoclasts next to make war upon our nursery-rhymes. We cannot doubt they will soon insist upon calling on the babies to announce to them that there is no such person as Mother Goose; or bring up syllogisms in mood and figure to overthrow the dogma of Santa Claus. The sophomores are not confined to the lower classes in our colleges! Truly our age may be described as a post Santa Claus period—the age of our first pair of pantaloons. A little out of mere infancy and thoughtless trust, and not yet arrived at clear rational and moral ideas—not yet reached the "years which bring the philosophic mind." We are in a betwixt and between condition when we still eat our Christmas candy with childish gusto, but begin to suspect shrewdly that papa and mamma had something to do with filling the stockings. We do not exactly know, but our very superstition and doubt drive us to endeavor to find arguments to combat the story which once filled our childish imaginations with delight.

There is one point, then, we may set ourselves easy upon, and claim reconciliation with the rest of the world: There is no such dogma as that of special creations, announced as a systematic article of faith by any religious authority; nor philosophically discussed and contended for by any theologian worthy of the name. A few unwary ones, like Hugh Miller, more skilled in rocks than in the theology in which he thought he believed, may, now that the question is raised, have confounded the Genesis of Species with the more general idea of Creation; and may have followed their antagonists into blunder after blunder.

It is no reply to this position to point out the fact that eminent religious teachers, such as Balmez, or even St. Augustine, at times spoke of the creation of species. For that matter, it is not unphilosophical to speak of the creation of individuals, and that with the instrumentality of immediate parents before our eyes. But, granting these to be mistakes of said doctors of theology, nothing is concluded thereby. For even our lawyers in the ordinary practice of the courts will tell you that obiter dicta of a judge decide no law. Innumerable instances occur in their daily practice when the judges, declaring and announcing correctly the general principles of law, yet make the most absurd and illogical application to particular facts and cases, and that even on points actually before the court; much more upon questions only incidentally brought in upon their own motion. Hence the general rule of logic in such matters: that general rules take precedence of particular applications.

The same rule applies here: for it is fact that this question, exactly as we now put it, never was before the court until formally raised in this plea of evolution.

But, to go back through the literature of the case: From very remote periods, even of Greek philosophy, discriminating analysis is