Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/512

508 lay in the superior congruency of the hypothesis—as contrasted with the special creation doctrine—with the methodological presuppositions of modern science and with the general view of nature which in most of the other provinces of science had already been accepted.

Reviewing the past triumphs of the scientific method over supernaturalism, he concludes:

Similarly Romanes put in the fore-front of the arguments for evolution

Th "overwhelming weight of antecedent presumption" against special creation, and in favor of evolution, was pointed out by Chambers with entire clearness; his arguments present in part an almost verbal parallel to the passages I have quoted from Tyndall and Romanes. In the already established results of geology and astronomy, he writes in the "Vestiges":

We have seen powerful evidence that the construction of the globe and its associates was the result, not of any immediate or personal exertion on the part of the Deity, but of natural laws which are expressions of his Will. What is to hinder our supposing that the organic creation is also the result of natural