''NATURAL RELIGIONS 



513 



who have drawn attention off mere umbilicular contemplation such as 

 Morris, Rossetti, and Swinburne. We have accordingly to trace in 

 the succeeding years the rise of new schools of thought, as well as 

 the several attempts of religious writers to accommodate traditional 

 religion to the new light thrown upon it. This will take us through 

 twenty years, up to the memorable years 1873-74, when the different 

 schools came into open antagonism. 



To trace out the different lines of thought with any fullness would 

 require a separate study ; as I am simply passing over the ground 

 with the view of setting a single book in a clearer light, I must con- 

 tent myself with mentioning the names of a few leading works, with 

 their dates. The rise of the evolution school was heralded in 1845 by 

 Robert Chambers's " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," an 

 expansion of the Lamarckian theories of natural development. But the 

 writings by which what we now mean by evolution were popularized 

 fall within the present period. " The Origin of Species " appeared in 

 1859, Spencer's "First Principles" in 1862, Huxley's "Evidence as to 

 Man's Place in Nature" in 18G3, and "The Descent of Man" in 1871. 

 With this school also we may class Max Midler's " Lectures on the 

 Science of Language," which appeared in 1861, as tending to widen 

 the conception of evolution. Of the effects of this new view of life 

 upon religious thought it is not too much to say that, if it cut the 

 ground from under the intuitionalist theory of right and wrong, and 

 of the origin of conscience, to the skeptic in regard to supernaturalism 

 it gave a prospect and a future glorious with hope. To many minds 

 the ascent of man serves a more glorious conception than his fall. The 

 door was opened for a pantheistic view of the universe, and this tend- 

 ency was enhanced by the influence of Ruskin, who was already writ- 

 ing in 1850. George Eliot, who has exercised a distinct influence upon 

 the age by popularizing the ethical side of positivism, and showing 

 men that it gives a work-a-day theory of life, began to publish in the 

 year 1858. 



What has been called the fleshly, and more recently the aesthetic 

 school of poetry, is best represented by the names of Swinburne, Will- 

 iam Morris, and Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Swinburne's works are too nu- 

 merous to mention, but his " Chastelard " appeared in 1865, his " Poems 

 and Ballads," of unhappy notoriety, in the following year ; Morris's 

 " Defense of Guinevere," his first work, appeared in 1858, his " Earthly 

 Paradise" in 1868; Rossetti's first celebrated volume of "Poems" 

 appeared in 1870. Of this school it may be said that, without being 

 brought into actual contact with supernaturalism, the tendency of 

 their writings was to take men's thoughts into a different field, to con- 

 secrate the passions and sentiment, to revive with a difference the old 

 Greek modes of looking at man and his destiny in the world. With 

 this school we must rank the important name of Walt Whitman, whose 

 first series of "Leaves of Grass" came in 1855. Of course his influ 

 tol. xx:i. 33 



