370 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



nation than a soap-biibMe can bear handling, and that therefore 

 these must, at all costs, be protected from every breath of criti- 

 cism ? If this is not what is meant, if, on the contrary, it is 

 maintained that the being of God is a luminous truth, proclaim- 

 ing itself in the very heart of man, why not challenge all the 

 philosophies of the world to assail it at their peril ? Why not 

 say to Darwinians and all others : " Push your researches as far 

 as you like ; make your most comprehensive inductions, your 

 widest generalizations ; construct your most daring theories : not 

 only will nothing impair this great central truth of Deity, but 

 all the truths you gather will lack significance till illuminated by 

 it " ? But, strictly speaking, the Darwinian theory has nothing 

 to do with the question as to the existence of God. It is no more 

 atheistic in its nature than the Newtonian theory of gravitation. 

 The latter substituted for the angeli redores of Kepler an all- 

 pervading law of matter ; and Darwinism substitutes for certain 

 supposed acts of spasmodic creation an orderly sequence of devel- 

 opment ; but neither one nor the other professes to say how the 

 origin of the universe should be conceived. If Darwinism has 

 weakened the argument for theism in certain minds, it has 

 strengthened it in others — witness the recent address of Mr. Bal- 

 four on " Positivism," before the Church Congress at Manchester. 

 We are threatened with the destruction of an " immutable 

 type of truth and justice " ; but what is the exact meaning of 

 these words ? If truth is the conformity of statement to fact, 

 how can the idea of truth ever vanish from the world? Certainly, 

 if such a result should ever come about, it would not be due to 

 the influence of any honest form of scientific thought. We do 

 not think any one will say that Mr. Darwin did anything in his 

 long lifetime to weaken respect for truth, or to make truth less 

 a reality in the world. We know some people whose efforts 

 do tend strongly in that direction ; but, for the most part, they 

 are not Darwinians ; they are people who can not bring them- 

 selves to define the terms they use, and who try to make authority 

 do the work of demonstration. So successful, unfortunately, are 

 teachers of this class, that throughout a large portion of society— 

 the portion in which Darwinism is very generally flouted and 

 scouted — a sense for truth in intellectual matters is most con- 

 spicuously lacking. As to an " immutable type of justice," does 

 any one know what that means ? Can any one conceive what an 

 immutable type of justice would be like ? How would it be ex- 

 pressed ? In an act ? We can either now conceive an act that 

 would serve as an immutable type of justice, or we can not : if 

 we can, then the type is safe ; if we can not — which we imagine 

 is the truth — then we must forego the hope of an immutable 

 type, and content ourselves with what perhaps is good enough 



