CH. iv] THE COMING OF EVOLUTION 21 



as revealed truth, but the periods of time necessary for 

 evolution could not be admitted by those who believed 

 the beginning of the world to have been recent, and 

 its end to be imminent. Thus 'Catastrophic' ideas 

 came to be regarded as orthodox, and evolutionary 

 ones as utterly irreligious and damnable. 



There are few more curious facts in the history of 

 science than the contrast between the reception of 

 the teaching of the Saxon professor Werner, and 

 those of Button, the Scotch philosopher, his great 

 rival. While the enthusiastic disciples of the former 

 carried their master's ideas everywhere, acting with 

 missionary zeal and fervour, and teaching his doctrines 

 almost as though they were a divine revelation, the 

 latter, surrounded by a few devoted friends, saw his 

 teachings everywhere received with persistent mis- 

 representation, theological vituperation or contemp- 

 tuous neglect. Even in Edinburgh itself, one of 

 Werner's pupils dominated the teaching of the 

 University for half a century, and established a society 

 for the propagation of the views which Button so 

 strongly opposed. 



When it is remembered that Button wrote at a 

 time when ' heresy -hunting ' in this country had been 

 excited to such a dangerous extent, through the 

 excesses of the French Revolution, that his con- 

 temporary, Priestley, had been hounded from his home 

 and country for proclaiming views which at that 



