A DEFENSE OF MODERN THOUGHT, 785 



ward as involving others which really invade the domain of science 

 and tend to cast uncertainty upon its methods and results. 



In seeking to account for " the modern spread of agnosticism," the 

 bishop finds that it is to " the widely-spread popularity of the theory 

 of evolution, leading as it does to materialism," that the phenomenon 

 is to be attributed. CoDsequently the theory of evolution must be de- 

 stroyed. The Episcopal edict has gone forth, and the Episcopal bat- 

 teries are raised against this later Carthage of infidelity. But, alas ! it 

 does not sufliciently appear that the right reverend director of the 

 siege understands either the nature of the task he has undertaken or 

 the significance which would attach to success could he achieve it. To 

 take the latter point first : science was making very rapid progress 

 before the evolution theory had acquired any wide popularity, before 

 in fact anything was known of it outside of one or two speculative 

 treatises ; and already the opposition of science to a scheme which 

 makes this earth the theatre of miracle-working power was well 

 marked. Twenty-two years ago, when " The Origin of Species " was 

 but two years old, and had still a great deal of opposition to encounter 

 even from men of science, before even the term evolution had any 

 currency in the special sense it now bears, a leading prelate of the 

 Church of England, Bishop Wilberforce, discerned a skeptical move- 

 ment " too wide-spread and connecting itself with far too general con- 

 ditions " to be explained otherwise than as " the first stealing over the 

 sky of the lurid lights which shall be shed profusely around the great 

 Antichrist." * To charge the present intellectual state of the world, 

 therefore, on the doctrine of evolution is to ignore that general move- 

 ment of thought which, before the idea of evolution was a factor of 

 any importance in modern speculation, had already, as the Bishop of 

 Oxford testified, carried thousands away from their old theological 

 habitations, and which, with or without the theory of evolution, was 

 quite adapted to produce the state of things which we see to-day in 

 the intellectual world. 



The doctrine of evolution is simply the form in which the domi- 

 nant scientific thought of the day is cast. As a working hypothesis 

 it presents very great advantages ; and the thinkers of to-day would 

 find it hard to dispense with the aid it affords. But supposing it 

 could be shown that the doctrine, as at present conceived, was untena- 

 ble what then ? Would men of science at once abandon their belief 

 in the invariability of natural law and fly back to mediaeval supersti- 

 tions ? By no means. If there is any class of men who have learned 

 the lesson that the spider taught to Bruce, it is the class of scientific 

 workers. Destroy one of their constructions and they set to work 

 again, with unconquerable industry, to build another. In fact, they 

 are always testing and trying their own constructions ; and we may 

 be sure that if the evolution theory is ever to be swept away it will 



* Vide preface to " Replies to Essays and Reviews." 

 vol. xxiv. 50 



