^^UW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 153 



a denial of God " ; and that " no teleologist can be a Darwinian." 

 Even more bitter was another of the leading authorities at the 

 same university the Rev. Dr. Duffield. He declared war not 

 only against Darwin but even against men like Asa Gray, Le 

 Conte, and others, who had attempted to reconcile the new theory 

 with the Bible ; he insisted that " evolutionism and the scriptural 

 account of the origin of man are irreconcilable " that the Dar- 

 winian theory is " in direct conflict with the teaching of the 

 apostle, * All scripture is given by inspiration of God '" ; he 

 points out, in opposition both to Darwin's Descent of Man and 

 Lyell's Antiquity of Man, that in the Bible "the genealogical 

 links which connect the Israelites in Egypt with Adam and Eve 

 in Eden are explicitly given." These utterances of Prof. Duffield 

 culminated in a declaration which deserves to be cited as showing 

 that a Presbyterian minister can "deal damnation round the 

 land " ex cathedra in a fashion quite equal to that of popes and 

 bishops. It is as follows : " If the development theory of the ori- 

 gin of man," wrote Dr. Duffield in the Princeton Review, " shall 

 in a little while take its place as doubtless it will with other 

 exploded scientific speculations, then they who accept it with its 

 proper logical consequences will in the life to come have their 

 portion with those who in this life ' know not God and obey not 

 the gospel of his Son.' " 



Fortunately, at about the time when Darwin's Descent of Man 

 was published, there had come into Princeton University a " deus 

 ex machina " in the person of Dr. James McCosh. Assuming the 

 presidency, he at once took his stand against teachings so danger- 

 ous to Christianity as those of Drs. Hodge, Duffield, and their 

 confreres. In one of his personal confidences he has let us into 

 the secret of this matter. With that hard Scotch sense which 

 had won the applause of Thackeray in his well-known verses, he 

 saw that the most dangerous thing which could be done to Chris- 

 tianity at Princeton was to reiterate in the university pulpit, 

 week after week, solemn declarations that if evolution by natural 

 selection, or indeed evolution at all, be true, the Scriptures are 

 false. McCosh tells us that he saw that this was the certain 

 way to make the students unbelievers ; he therefore not only gave 

 a check to this dangerous preaching but preached an opposite 

 doctrine. With him began the inevitable compromise, and, in 

 spite of mutterings against him as a Darwinian, he carried the 

 day. Whatever may be thought of the general system of philoso- 

 phy which he has advocated, no one can deny the great service he 

 rendered in neutralizing the teachings of his predecessors and col- 

 leagues so dangerous to all that is essential in Christianity. 



Other divines of strong sense in other parts of the country be- 

 gan to take similar ground namely, that men could be Christians 



