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The doctrine of evolution is still the _ignotum_ to a great many, and it
is therefore, according to the time-honoured proverb, taken _pro
magnifico_, as something terribly adverse to the faith. Nor can it be
fairly denied, as I before remarked, that some of the students of the
theory have become so enamoured of it, so carried away by the
intoxication of the gigantic speculation it opens out to the
imagination, that they have succumbed to the temptation to carry
speculation beyond what the proof warrants, and thus lend some aid to
the deplorable confusion, which would blend in one, what is legitimate
inference and what is unproved hypothesis or mere supposition.
It only remains to say that the basis of this little book is a short
course of lectures in which I endeavoured to disarm the prejudices of an
educated but not scientifically critical audience, by simply stating how
far the theory of cosmical evolution had been really proved--proved,
that is, to the extent of that reasonable certainty which satisfies the
ordinary "prudent man" in affairs of weight and importance. I have tried
to show that evolution, apart from fanciful and speculative extensions
of it, allows, if it does not directly establish, that the operation of
nature is not a chance or uncontrolled procedure, but one that suggests
a distinct set of lines, and an orderly obedience to pre-conceived law,
intelligently and beneficently (in the end) designed.
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