DARWINISM AND DIVINITY. 189 



certainly, that under these circumstances they would betray a little 

 less uneasiness ; and that the discovery that the doctrine is harmless 

 might precede by a rather longer interval the admission that it is true. 

 Thei*e would be less room for unkindly cavils. However, it is being 

 discovered, in one way or other, that religion is really not interested in 

 these discussions. We have lately seen, for example, in a very ortho- 

 dox Romanist organ, that theology has nothing, or next to nothing, to 

 say to Mr. Darwin's theories. It is permissible to believe either that 

 man was made by a single act of the creative energy, or that a pair of 

 apes was selected and improved gradually into humanity, as, if the 

 comparison be admissible, human processes may gradually form the 

 carrier-pigeon out of his wild congeners. We must, indeed, hold that 

 the operation was miraculous ; and as the tendency of scientific inquiry 

 is to banish the miraculous, we may say that there is still a funda- 

 mental opposition between the teaching of the Church and Mr. Dar- 

 win. When we consider how easily the word " miraculous " may 

 itself be rarefied until no particular meaning is left, we may doubt 

 whether this opposition may not be removed ; the verdict of science as 

 to the mode in Avhich the phenomena succeeded each other might be 

 accepted, though there would be a difference of opinion as to the 

 efficient cause of the change, and thus a kind of compromise might be 

 effected between the rival forces. 



Meanwhile, whatever the validity of this and similar artifices, it 

 may be worth while to consider a little more closely what is the pros- 

 pect before us. Let us suppose that Darwinism is triumphant at every 

 point. Imagine it to be demonstrated that the long line of our 

 genealogy can be traced back to the lowest organisms ; suppose that 

 our descent from the ape is conclusively proved, and the ape's descent 

 from the tidal animal, and the tidal animal's descent from some ulti- 

 mate monad, in whom all the vital functions are reduced to the merest 

 rudiments. Or, if we will, let us suppose that a still further step has 

 been taken, and the origin of life itself discovered, so that, by putting 

 a certain mixture in an hermetically-sealed bottle, we can create our 

 own ancestors over again. When we endeavor firmly to grasp that 

 conception, we are, of course, sensible of a certain shock. We have a 

 prejudice or two derived from the Zoological Gardens and elsewhere, 

 which, as it were, causes our gorge to rise ; but when we have fairly 

 allowed the conception to sink into our minds, when we have brought 

 our other theories into harmony with it, and have lost that uncomfort- 

 able sense of friction and distortion which is always produced by the 

 intrusion of a new set of ideas, what is the final result of it all ? What 

 is it that we have lost, and what have we acquired in its place ? It is 

 surely worth while to face the question boldly, and look into the worst 

 fears that can be conjured up by these terrible discoverers. Probably, 

 after such an inspection, the thought that will occur to any reasonable 

 man will be : What does it matter ? What possible difference can it 



