1 88 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



DARWINISM AND DIVINITY. 



By L. S. 



WE are going through that change in regard to Mr. Darwin's 

 speculations which has occurred so often in regard to scientific 

 theories. When first propounded, divines regarded them with horror, 

 and declared them to be radically opposed not only to the book of 

 Genesis, but to all the religious beliefs which elevate us above the 

 brutes. The opinions have gained wider acceptance ; and, whatever 

 may be the ultimate verdict as to their soundness, it certainly cannot 

 be doubted that they are destined profoundly to modify the future 

 current of thought. As Darwinism has won its way to respectability, 

 as it has ceased to be the rash conjecture of some hasty speculator, 

 and is received with all the honors of grave scientific discussion, 

 divines have naturally come to look upon it with different eyes. They 

 have gradually sidled up toward the object which at first struck them 

 as so dark and portentous a phenomenon, and discovered that after all 

 it is not of so diabolic a nature as they had imagined. Its breath 

 does not wither up every lofty aspiration, and every worthy concep- 

 tion of the destiny of humanity. Darwinists are not necessarily 

 hoofed and horned monsters, but are occasionally of pacific habits, and 

 may even be detected in the act of going to church. Room may be 

 made for their tenets alongside of the Thirty-nine Articles, by a little 

 judicious crowding and rearrangement. Some of the old literal 

 interpretations of the Scriptures must perhaps be abandoned, but after 

 all they were in far too precarious a position already to be worth 

 much lamentation. It would be entirely unfair to accuse persons, who 

 have gone through this change, of the smallest conscious insincerity. 

 They are not merely endeavoring to curry favor with an adversary 

 because he has become too formidable to be openly encountered. 

 They have simply found out, in all honesty and sincerity, that the 

 object of their terror has been invested with half his terrible attributes 

 by their own hasty imagination. They are exemplifying once more 

 the truth conveyed in an old story. A man hangs on to the edge of a 

 precipice through the dark hours of the night, believing that if his grasp 

 fails him he will be instantly dashed to a thousand fragments ; at 

 length his strength will bear it no longer, and he falls only to 

 discover that his feet had been all the time within a couple of inches 

 of the ground ! The precipice was a creation of his fancy, and the 

 long agony entirely thrown away. So we may believe that a good 

 many sound divines have resigned themselves to the inevitable plunge, 

 and are astonished to find all their vital functions continuing to operate 

 pretty nearly as well after as before the catastrophe. Perhaps they feel 

 rather foolish, though of course they do not say so. One could wish, 



