THE DOGMA OF EVOLUTION 



which is the belief of the best teachers of religion. 

 Nor do I think that the materialism of the ordinary 

 convert to evolutionary science is any more critical or 

 any sounder in its blind acceptance of scientific hy- 

 pothesis than is the idealism of the ignorant and cred- 

 ulous Christian. 



Those, who would have us believe that science 

 moves forward steadily after each step has been sub- 

 jected to rigorous criticism, and that men of science 

 are inspired only by so pure a love of truth as to wel- 

 come the overthrow of an erroneous theory on which 

 their reputation depends, do not present a just pic- 

 ture of science or of any human activity. As I review 

 the history of science on the one hand and of philoso- 

 phy and religion on the other, nothing seems more 

 certain than that scientific men do carefully sift the ac- 

 curacy of observations and measurements, while they 

 are at the same time singularly indifferent towards 

 the manifest absurdity of many of the scientific hy- 

 potheses. Do Spencer and Fiske show a critical spirit 

 when they say categorically that their whole vast 

 scheme of evolution is an established fact? Do the 

 physicists realize the impossibility of the situation 

 when they announce comprehensible laws of a uni- 

 verse each of whose almost infinitesimal parts is more 

 complicated than our solar systems'? Or do men of 

 science recognize that they are living in glass houses 

 and that it is dangerous to throw stones? When they 

 scoff at philosophy and religion because of seventy- 



C 352 1 



