DARWINISM AND DIVINITY. 191 



this cheerful opinion still linger. Most men have grown beyond it, 

 and have found some broader basis for their hopes and aspirations. 

 And yet, when one comes to think about it, is not the alarm which has 

 been caused by the statement that Adam was the great-grandson of 

 an ape equally preposterous ? Why should it have so fluttered the 

 dove-cotes of the Church ? If science could have proved divines to be 

 apes themselves, there would have been some ground for vexation ; 

 but that was obviously out of the question, and their alarm would only 

 prove that they were drawing some very unwarrantable inferences, or 

 else by association of ideas had become unable to distinguish between 

 the essence and the remotest accidental accompaniments of the faith. 

 What interest can the highest part of our nature really take in a 

 dispute as to whether certain facts did or did not occur many ages 

 ago? The prima-facie presumption is, certainly, that any change in 

 our opinions would affect rather the external imagery than the faith 

 which it embodies. One would say at first sight that religion is no 

 more likely to leave the world because we have new views as to the 

 mode in which the world began, than poetry to vanish as soon as we 

 have ceased to believe in the historical accuracy of the account of the 

 siege of Troy. Man possesses certain spiritual organs, whose function 

 it is to produce religion. Religion could only be destroyed by remov- 

 ing the organs, and not by supplying them with slightly different 

 food. 



The precise nature of the fears entertained by the orthodox is 

 revealed by the arguments generally brought to bear against the new 

 doctrine. There is, for example, what may be called the metaphysical 

 argument, which, in one form or another, seems to be regarded as im- 

 portant. It is substantially an attempt to prove that the gap between 

 the brute and the human mind is so wide that we cannot imagine it to 

 be filled up by any continuous series. It is argued at great length 

 that instinct differs from reason not in degree but in kind, or that 

 brutes do not possess even the rudiments of what we call a moral 

 sense. The argument has Ions: been more or less familiar. Animals 

 have always been regarded with a certain dislike by theological 

 arrogance. It has been held to be a conclusive objection to the 

 validity of certain arguments for the immortality of the soul, that they 

 would open the path to heaven to our dogs as well as to ourselves. It 

 does not seem very easy to give any satisfactory reason for the ex- 

 treme abhorrence with which such a consummation is regarded, or to 

 say why we should claim a monopoly in another world which we do 

 not enjoy in this. Philosophers, indeed, have gone further, and denied 

 to animals even the most moderate share of our own capacities, and 

 have set them down as nothing better than machines. One is really 

 rather glad to see the poor beasts getting their revenge in public opin- 

 ion, and being recognized as our relations after having been almost 

 repudiated as fellow-creatures. The distinctions, indeed, which have 



