science to terms of change and movement must have a mischievous effect on subsequent inquiries. It would be ludicrous to limit Astronomy to hypotheses about the origin of the Solar System, and to limit Geology to speculations how the Earth came about, neglecting all notice of the Earth as we find it. It is an attempt to write a new Book of Genesis—based not on Revelation, not on observation of facts, but on unverifiable hypotheses. And all the time the student of Astronomy is left uninstructed as to the Precession of the Equinoxes, and the effect on the Earth of Sun-spots; and the student of Geology is left in the dark as to the extent and disposition of the Coal Measures. We know in this University only too well the consequences of limiting Science to a matter of Origins. The student of History, whose views about the French Revolution are quite rudimentary, is full of learning about the Mark System. And the candidate for a degree in Law, who is hazy about the Statute of Frauds or the Wills Acts, is voluble about the Witenagemot and the Laws of Ina.
I pass to another difficulty which the scheme of Universal Evolution presents to many minds. It propounds a single set of laws which claim to be equally applicable to all the sciences, both cosmical and human; and, more than that, it claims to supply us with an adequate but general elucidation of all phenomena in the Universe, on our Earth, and in human nature. At the close of his famous essay, Reasons for dissenting from the Philosophy of M. Comte, Spencer challenges Positivists to show that Comte ever held his view, 'that the factors producing changes of all kinds, inorganic and organic, co-operate everywhere throughout the Cosmos in the same general way, and everywhere work meta-
