45/85 below zero) _he can see no difficulty in the production at length of an animal as monstrous as a whale_! M. This theory, it should be remembered, is _merely a theory_, _a mere notion_, _a hypothesis_. It is not even alleged that it is based upon facts actually discovered. The alleged facts of the cooling of the nebulae, the chemical origin of life upon our globe, and the development of the original Ascidian into the fish, and that into the monkey, and of the monkey into the man, never were witnessed by anybody, nor could they be witnessed. La Place was honest enough to call his part of the theory, The Nebular _Hypothesis_. |