14 WE GEXESTS OF SPEriES. [Chap. 



and defenders. Xur have the snpjiorters of tlie tlieoiy 

 much reason, in many cases, to Lhime the mure or k'ss 

 unskilful and hasty attacks of adversaries, seein:^ tliat 

 those attacks liave l)een in great pait due to the unskiU'ul 

 and perverse advocacy of the cause on the part of some of 

 it-s adherents. If tlie odivm thcolof/icum lias inspired some 

 of its opponents, it is undeniable tliat the odium antifhro' 

 logicum lias possessed not a few of its supporters. It is 

 true (and in appreciating some of Mr. Darwin's expressions 

 it should never be forgotten) that the theory has been both 

 at its first promulgation and since vehemently attacked 

 and denounced as unchristian, nay, as necessarily atheistic; 

 but it is not less true that it has been made use of as a 

 weapon of offence by irreligious writers, and has been 

 again and again, especially in continental Europe, thrown, 

 as it were, in the face of believers, with sneers and con- 

 tumely. AVhen we recollect the warmth with ^^"hich what 

 he thought was Darwinism was advocated bv such a writer 

 as Professor Vogt, one cause of his zeal was not far to seek 

 — a zeal, by the way, certainly not " according to know- 

 ledge;" for few conceptions could have been more con- 

 flictinjT vith true Darwinism than the theory he formerlv 

 maintained, but has ^ince abandoned, viz. that the men of 

 the Old World were descended from African and Asiatic ajies, 

 while, similarly, tlie American apes were the progenitors 

 of the human beings of the Xew AVorld. The cause of 

 this palpable error in a too eager disciple, one might ho}te, 

 was not anxiety to snatch up all or any arms available 

 against Christianity, were it not for the tone unhappily 

 adopted by him. But it is unfortunately quite impossilde 

 to mistake his meaning and intention, for lie is a 

 writer whose offensiveness is gi'oss, while it is sometimes 



