146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a humble monkey rather than of a man who employs his knowl- 

 edge and eloquence in misrepresenting those who are wearing out 

 their lives in the search for truth." 



This shot reverberated through England, and indeed through 

 other countries. 



The utterances of the most brilliant prelate of the Anglican 

 Church received a sort of antiphonal response from the leaders 

 of the English Catholics. In an address before the Academia, 

 which had been organized to combat " science falsely so called," 

 Cardinal Manning declared his " abhorrence " of the new view of 

 Nature, and described it as " a brutal philosophy to wit, there is 

 no God, and the ape is our Adam." 



These attacks from such eminent sources set the clerical fash- 

 ion which prevailed for several years. One eminent clerical re- 

 viewer, in spite of Darwin's thirty years of quiet labor, and in 

 spite of the powerful summing up of his book, prefaced a diatribe 

 by saying that Darwin "might have been more modest had he 

 given some slight reason for dissenting from the views generally 

 entertained." Another distinguished clergyman, vice-president 

 of a Protestant institute to combat " dangerous " science, de- 

 clared Darwinism " an attempt to dethrone God," Another critic 

 spoke of persons accepting the Darwinian views as " under the 

 frenzied inspiration of the inhaler of mephitic gas," and of Dar- 

 win's argument as " a jungle of fanciful assumption." Another 

 spoke of Darwin's views as suggesting that " God is dead," and 

 declared that Darwin's work " does open violence to everything 

 which the Creator himself has told us in the Scriptures of the 

 methods and results of his work." Still another theological au- 

 thority declares : " If the Darwinian theory is true. Genesis is a 

 lie, the whole framework of the book of life falls to pieces, and 

 the revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it, is a delu- 

 sion and a snare." Another, who had showji excellent qualities 

 as an observing naturalist, declared the Darwinian view " a huge 

 imposture from the beginning." 



Echoes came from America. One review, the organ of the most 

 widespread of American religious sects, declared that Darwin 

 " was attempting to befog and to pettifog the whole question " ; 

 another declared Darwin's views " the only form of infidelity 

 from which Christianity had anything to fear " ; another, repre- 

 senting the American branch of the Anglican Church, poured 

 contempt over Darwin as " sophistical and illogical," and then 

 plunged into an exceedingly dangerous line of argument in the 

 following words : " If this hypothesis be true, then is the Bible an 

 unbearable fiction ; . . . then have Christians for nearly two thou- 

 sand years been duped by a monstrous lie, , . . Darwin requires 

 us to disbelieve the authoritative word of the Creator." A lead- 



