them against dying out, and their places being taken by much slighter creatures which had some more valuable attributes than size; the _diplodocus Carnegii_ in the British Museum measures some seventy-five feet, but that fact did not prevent the species from becoming extinct uncounted ages since--simply because it was lacking in the higher qualities which would have enabled it to survive. And even the _diplodocus_, with its lumbering body and diminutive brain, was whole worlds superior to inorganic nature. That the marvellous thing called human personality should outlast the decay of what is so much inferior to itself, is therefore not only not inconceivable, but in itself not even improbable. It is a strange sort of modesty--to say the least of it--which would make us think ourselves of less account in the scale of existence or the sight of God than unconscious matter in its cruder and lower stages. One might as sensibly urge that the delicate hairspring of a watch, being of featherweight and almost invisible, must be worth less than a lump of crude iron-ore. (2) We turn to the supposed argument from evolution, _viz._, from man's lowly origin, as furnishing a strong presumption against his immortality. This plea, familiar enough in sceptical discussions of the subject, has been put forward with great poetic force by Mr. William Watson; after graphically describing {228} "the gibbering form obscene that was and was not man," as lower in many respects than the beasts and birds in whose midst he dwelt, he suggests that it was Rather some random throw Of heedless Nature's die, 'Twould seem, that from so low Hath lifted man so high. If, then, our rise from gloom Hath this capricious air, What ground is mine to assume An upward process there, In yonder worlds that shine From upward tracts of sky? No ground to assume is mine Nor warrant to deny. Equal, my source of hope, my reason for despair.