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EVOLUTION. 



The visit of Prof. Huxley to America must be looked upon as an event 

 in the progress of evolution in this country — not that he laid before us 

 anything new, but because he brought in succinct form, and so conspicu- 

 ously before the public, some of the best arguments in favor of the doc- 

 trine. All great truths that oppose long established popular belief must 

 needs belong to the few when nascent. Struggling to overcome the em- 

 bargo which prejudice and ignorance always set in their path, they at last 

 win acceptance from the mass of thinking men, who by that time wonder 

 how there could ever have been serious objection to the new light. The 

 doctrine of evolution has very nearly reached this second stage : and it must 

 be gratifying to those who from the first accepted Darwin's conclusions, 

 to be able to witness the revolution that has taken place on the subject in 

 the minds of naturalists, and is fast taking place in the minds of the 

 people. Seven years ago, in discussing the theory of natural selection as 

 exemplified in two of our common butterflies, I stated my belief that the 

 idea of the development of species by a conceivable process would in time 

 not only supersede the old idea of special creation, with naturalists — that 

 it would come to be recognized as a law : but that the liberal-minded theo- 

 logian would come to revere the names of men like Darwin, who help to a 

 higher conception of creation, "instead of anathematizing them, and charg- 

 ing to their doctrines those atheistic tendencies which in times past have 

 been vainly charged to those of so many other great, clear-thinking, dis- 

 covering minds." Late events have justified the belief. Future events will, 

 I believe, justify it further, since, in my humble opinion, the idea of evolu- 

 tion is founded on fact, and, like a gem freed from the deposits which for 

 ages have hidden its lustre, will shine all the brighter as the obstacles 

 which surround it are removed by the light of truth. 



Professor Gray has done good service in bringing together his various 

 essays on Darwinism under the title of Darwiniana. Always interesting 

 and enjoyable, Professor Gray tells heavily against the popular but erro- 

 neous idea that Darwinism is atheistic, by showing how ably it may be 

 supported by "one who is scientifically and in his own fashion a Darwin- 

 ian, philosophically a convinced theist, and religiously an acceptor of the 

 'creed commonly called the Nicene' as the exponent of Christian faith." 

 In treating of the considerations which have led so many working natural- 

 ists to accept the derivative hypothesis. Prof. Gray uses the following lan- 

 guage, which I strongly commend to those who find fault with Darwinians 

 for nofdiscussing or attempting to explain the remote origin of life : "They 

 leave to polemical speculators the fruitless discussion of the question 

 whether all species came from one or two, or more; they are trying to 

 grasp the thing by the near, not by the farther end, and to ascertain, first 

 of all, whether it is probable or provable that present species are descend- 

 ants of former ones which were like them, but less and less like them the 

 farther back we go." 



