THE RELATION OF EVOLUTION TO MATERIALISM. 79 



established species, and high degree of development which the 

 thrushes have attained, denote their comparative antiquity as a 

 group of birds. Time has been the important factor in estab- 

 lishing the species, and enabling them to live far and wide in 

 harmony with diverse conditions of life. It would be difficult 

 to ascertain the original center of their development — probably 

 one of the great land-masses, as the Euro- Asiatic continent, 

 whence the early forms have spread to other portions of the 

 earth, there to break up into new varieties and species under the 

 action of changing environments. 



Where other forms have succumbed in the struggle for life 

 these have lived on, until now, the almost perfect wing and foot ; 

 the vital strength that holds the plumage for a year before it is 

 shed, and also enables the mating pair to rear three goodly 

 broods each spring ; the vocal development, the omnivorous 

 diet, the abundance and world-wide distribution of species, tell 

 the story of how the robin and his congeners have come to be 

 what they are — a dominant group in the animal life of the 

 earth. 



THE RELATION OF EVOLUTION TO MATERIALISM.* 



Bt Pbofessor JOSEPH LE CONTE. 



IT was seen in the sketch previously given f that, after every 

 struggle between theology and science, there has been a re- 

 adjustment of some beliefs, a giving up of some notions which 

 really had nothing to do with religion in a proper sense, but 

 which had become so associated with religious belief as to be 

 confounded with the latter — a giving up of some line of de- 

 fense which ought never to have been held, because not with- 

 in the rightful domain of theology at all. Until the present 

 the whole difficulty has been the result of misconception, and 

 Christianity has emerged from every struggle only strengthened 

 and purified, by casting off an obstructing shell which hindered 

 its growth. But the present struggle seems to many an entirely 

 different and far more serious matter. To many it seems no 

 longer a struggle of theology, but of essential religion itself — a 

 deadly life-and-death struggle between religion and materialism. 

 To many, both skeptics and Christians, evolution seems to be 

 synonymous with blank materialism, and therefore cuts up by 

 the roots every form of religion by denying the existence of God 

 and the fact of immortality. That the enemies of religion, if 



* From "Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought." By Professor Joseph Le 

 Conte. New York : D. Applcton & Co., 1888. 



f "Popular Science Monthly" for January, 1888. 



