eye and ear. It is in great measure, then, owing to this supposed simplicity, and to a belief in its being yet easier and more simple than it is, that Darwinism, however imperfectly understood, has become a subject for general conversation, and has been able thus widely to increase a certain knowledge of biological matters; and this excitation of interest, in quarters where otherwise it would have been entirely wanting, is an additional motive for gratitude on the part of naturalists to the authors of the new theory. At the same time it must be admitted that a similar " simplicity"-the apparently easy explanation of complex phenomena―also constitutes the charm of such matters as hydropathy and phrenology, in the eyes of the unlearned or half-educated public. It is indeed the charm of all those seeming "short-cuts " to knowledge, by which the labor of mastering scientific details is spared to those who yet believe that without such labor they can attain all the most valuable results of scientific research. It is not, of course, for a moment meant to imply that its "simplicity " tells at all against "Natural Selection," but only that the actual or supposed possession of that quality is a strong reason for the wide and somewhat hasty acceptance of the theory, whether it be true or not.

In the second place, it was inevitable that a theory appearing to have very grave relations with questions of the last importance and interest to man, that is, with questions of religious belief, should call up an army of assailants and defenders. Nor have the supporters of the theory much reason, in many cases, to blame the more or less unskilful and hasty attacks of adversaries, seeing that those attacks have been in great part due to the unskilful and perverse advocacy of the cause on the part of some of its adherents. If the odium theologicum has inspired some of its opponents, it is undeniable that the odium antitheologicum has possessed not a few of its supporters.

It is true (and in appreciating some of Mr. Darwin's expressions it should never be forgotten) that the theory has been both at its first promulgation and since vehemently attacked and denounced as unchristian, nay, as necessarily atheistic; but it is not less true that it has been made use of as a weapon of offence by irreligious writers, and has been again and again, especially in Continental Europe, thrown, as it were, in the face of believers, with sneers and contumely. When we recollect the warmth with which what he thought was Darwinism was advocated by such a writer as Prof. Vogt, one cause of his zeal was not far to seek-a zeal, by-the-way, certainly not "according to knowledge; " for few conceptions could have been more conflicting with true Darwinism than the theory he formerly maintained, but has since abandoned, viz., that the men of the Old World were descended from African and Asiatic apes, while, similarly, the American apes were the progenitors of the human beings of the New World. The cause of this palpable error in a too eager disciple one might hope was not anxiety to snatch up all or any arms available against Christianity, were it not for the tone unhappily adopted by this author. But it is unfortunately quite impossible to mistake his meaning and intention, for he is a writer whose offensiveness is gross, while it is sometimes almost surpassed by an amazing shallowness. Of course, as might fully be expected, he adopts and reproduces the absurdly trivial objections to absolute morality drawn from differences in national customs." And he seems to have as little conception of the distinction between "formally " moral actions and those which are only materially" moral, as of that between the verbum mentale and the verbum oris. As an example of his onesidedit may be remarked that he compares the skulls of the "Lectures on Man," translated by the Anthropological Society, 1864,

66

ness,

p. 229.

American monkeys (Cebus apella and C. albifrons) with the intention of showing that man is of several distinct species, because skulls of different men are less alike than are those of these two monkeys; and he does this regardless of how the skulls of domestic animals (with which it is far more legitimate to compare races of men than with wild kinds), e. g., of different dogs or pigeons, tell precisely in the opposite direction. Regardless also of the fact that perhaps no genus of monkeys is in a more unsatisfactory state as to the determination of its different kinds than the genus chosen by him for illustration. This is so much the case that J. A. Wagner (in his supplement to Schreber's great work on Beasts) at first included all the kinds in a single species.

8

As to the strength of his prejudice and his regrettable coarseness, one quotation will be enough to display both. Speaking of certain early Christian missionaries, he says: "It is not so very improbable that the new religion, before which the flourishing Roman civilization relapsed into a state of barbarism, should have been introduced by people in whose skulls the anatomist finds simious characters so well developed, and in which the phrenologist finds the organ of veneration so much enlarged. I shall, in the meanwhile, call these simious narrow skulls of Switzerland' Apostle skulls,' as I imagine that in life they must have resembled the type of Peter the Apostle, as represented in Byzantine-Nazarene art."

In face of such a spirit, can it be wondered at that disputants have grown warm? Moreover, in estimating the vehemence of the opposition which has been offered, it should be borne in mind that the views defended by religious writers are, or should be, all-important in their eyes. They could not be expected to view with equanimity the destruction in many minds of "theology, natural and revealed, 8 "Lectures on Man," p. 378.

psychology, and metaphysics;" nor to weiga with calm and frigid impartiality arguments which seemed to them to be fraught with results of the highest moment to mankind, and therefore imposing on their consciences strenuous opposition as a first duty. Cool, judicial impartiality in them would have been a sign perhaps of intellectual gifts, but also of a more important deficiency of generous emotion.

It is easy to complain of the onesidedness of many of those who oppose Darwinism in the interest of orthodoxy; but not at all less patent is the intolerance and narrowmindedness of some of those who advocate it, avowedly or covertly, in the interest of heterodoxy. This hastiness of rejection or acceptance, determined by ulterior consequences believed to attach to "Natural Selection," is unfortunately in part to be accounted for by some expressions and a certain tone to be found in Mr. Darwin's writings. That his expressions, however, are not always to be construed literally is manifest. His frequent use metaphorically of the expressions, "contrivance," for example, and "purpose," has elicited, from the Duke of Argyll and others, criticisms which fail to tell against their opponent, because such expressions are, in Mr. Darwin's writings merely figurative— metaphors, and nothing more.

It may be hoped, then, that a similar looseness of expression will account for passages of a directly opposite tendency to that of his theistic metaphors.

Moreover, it must not be forgotten that he frequently uses that absolutely theological term, "the Creator," and that he has retained in all the editions of his “Origin of Species" an expression which has been much criticised. He speaks "of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms, or into one. 999 This is merely mentioned in justice to Mr. Darwin, and by no means because it is a position which this 9 See 5th edit., 1869, p. 579.

book is intended to support. For, from Mr. Darwin's usual mode of speaking, it appears that by such divine action he means a supernatural intervention, whereas it is here contended that throughout the whole process of physical evolution-the first manifestation of life included-supernatural action is assuredly not to be looked for.

Again, in justice to Mr. Darwin, it may be observed that he is addressing the general public, and opposing the ordinary and common objections of popular religionists, who have inveighed against "Evolution" and "Natural Selection" as atheistic, impious, and directly conflicting with the dogma of creation.

Still, in so important a matter, it is to be regretted that he did not take the trouble to distinguish between such merely popular views and those which repose upon some more venerable authority. Mr. John Stuart Mill has replied to similar critics, and shown that the assertion that his philosophy is irreconcilable with theism is unfounded; and it would have been better if Mr. Darwin had dealt in the same manner with some of his assailants, and shown the futility of certain of their objections when viewed from a more elevated religious stand-point. Instead of so doing, he seems to adopt the narrowest notions of his opponents, and, far from endeavoring to expand them, appears to wish to indorse them, and to lend to them the weight of his authority. It is thus that Mr. Darwin seems to admit and assume that the idea of "creation" necessitates a belief in an interference with, or dispensation of, natural laws, and that "creation "must be accompanied by arbitrary and unorderly phenomena. None but the crudest conceptions are placed by him to the credit of supporters of the dogma of creation, and it is constantly asserted that they, to be consistent, must offer "creative fiats " as explanations of physical phenomena, and be guilty of numerous other such absurdities. It is impossible, therefore, to acquit Mr. Darwin of at least