It will not be possible to rule out the supposition that the process of evolution may be guided by an intelligent design.

A mind unwilling to believe or even undesirous to be instructed, our weightiest evidence must ever fail to impress. It will insist on taking that evidence in bits and rejecting item by item. As all the facts come singly, anyone who dismisses them one by one is destroying the condition under which the conviction of a new truth could ever arise in the mind.

It will not be possible to rule out the supposition that the process of evolution may be guided by an intelligent design.

One curious result of this inertia, which deserves to rank among the fundamental 'laws' of nature, is that when a discovery has finally won tardy recognition it is usually found to have been anticipated, often with cogent reasons and in great detail.