THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



tion of his senses by material comforts and con- 

 veniences. 



The predominating trait of the leaders of evolu- 

 tion was an intense egotism and self-confidence that 

 in them lay the truth. They brushed aside the work of 

 earlier philosophers and teachers of ethics, or rather 

 they made hardly any reference to them. How could 

 it be otherwise when they had newly found the scien- 

 tific key to the law of the universe, that human civili- 

 zation was a steady progress? Why should we stoop 

 to learn from a Socrates, a Jesus, or a ^akya-Mouni 

 who shone merely by contrast in a community of 

 early barbarism unacquainted with the most elemen- 

 tary laws of physics and biology*? Darwin had a 

 naive ignorance of the work of even his immediate 

 predecessors; Spencer read no book whose fundamen- 

 tal ideas differed from his own ; and Huxley was the 

 strenuous opponent of classical education. ^° 



With this egotism, there naturally followed an un- 

 limited admiration for each other. Jealous of the su- 

 preme influence of Newton over the physical sciences, 

 Huxley proclaims Darwin to be a second Newton of 

 the life-sciences; and Fiske, not to be outdone, goes 



1° The philosopher of this group was Spencer. Do not the follow- 

 ing quotations support my opinion that they were convinced the 

 Truth dwelt in them and in them alone? Spencer puts in words 

 what his contemporaries and Evolutionists believe. He writes : "I 

 am never puzzled. . . . The conclusions at which I have from time 

 to time arrived, have not been arrived at as solutions of questions 

 raised ; but have been arrived at unawares." {Autobiography, vol. 

 I, p. 462.) "Very rarely, if ever, did I cite an authority for any 

 opinion expressed." {Ibid., vol. II, p. 6.) Is not our emphasis on 

 modern opinion and neglect of the Bible and the classics indicative 

 of the same spirit? 



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