NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 443 



dence that the evolution of language has not been determined by 

 the philosophic utterances of Adam in naming the animals which 

 Jehovah brought before him, but in obedience to natural law. 



True, a few devoted theologians showed themselves willing to 

 lead a forlorn hope ; and perhaps the most forlorn of all was that 

 of 1840, led by Dr. Gottlieb Christian Kayser, Professor of Theol- 

 ogy at the Protestant University of Erlangen. He did not, indeed, 

 dare put in the old claim that Hebrew is identical with the primi- 

 tive tongue, but he insists that it is nearer it than any other. He 

 relinquishes the two former theological strongholds first, the 

 idea that language was taught by the Almighty to Adam, and, 

 next, that the alphabet was thus taught to Moses and falls back 

 on the position that all tongues are thus derived from Noah, giv- 

 ing as an example the language of the Caribbees, and insisting 

 that it was evidently so derived. What chance similarity in 

 words between Hebrew and the Caribbee tongue he had in mind 

 is past finding out. He comes out strongly in defense of the 

 biblical account of the Tower of Babel, and insists that by the 

 " symbolical expression ' God said, Let us go down/ a further nat- 

 ural phenomenon is intimated, to wit, the cleaving of the earth, 

 whereby the return of the dispersed became impossible that is 

 to say, through a new or not universal flood, a partial inundation 

 and temporary violent separation of great continents until the 

 time of the rediscovery." By these words the learned doctor 

 means nothing less than the separation of Europe from America. 



But while at the middle of the nineteenth century the theory 

 of the origin and development of language was upon the conti- 

 nent considered as settled, and a well-ordered science had there 

 emerged from the old chaos, Great Britain still held back, in 

 spite of the fact that the most important contributors to the 

 science were of British origin. Leaders in every English church 

 and sect vied with each other, either in denouncing the encroach- 

 ments of the science of language or in explaining it away. 



But a new epoch had come, and in a way least expected. 

 Perhaps the most notable effort in bringing it in was made by 

 Dr. Wiseman, afterward Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. 

 His is one of the best examples of a method which has been used 

 with considerable effect during the latest stages in nearly all the 

 controversies between theology and science. It consists in stat- 

 ing, with much apparent fairness, the conclusions of the scientific 

 authorities, and then in making the astounding assertion that the 

 Church has always accepted them and accepts them now as " addi- 

 tional proofs of the truth of Scripture " A little juggling with 

 words, a little amalgamation of texts, a little judicious suppres- 

 sion, a little imaginative deduction, a little unctuous phrasing, 

 and the thing is done. One great service this eminent Catholic 



