484 Darwinism and Religious Thought 



Under the head of the directly and purely Darwinian elements 

 1 should class as preeminent the work of Wallace and of Bates ; for 

 no two sets of facts have done more to fix in ordinary intelligent 

 minds a belief in organic evolution and in natural selection as its 

 guiding factor than the facts of geographical distribution and of 

 protective colour and mimicry. The facts of geology were difficult 

 to grasp and the public and theologians heard more often of the 

 imperfection than of the extent of the geological record. The 

 witness of embryology, depending to a great extent upon microscopic 

 work, was and is beyond the appreciation of persons occupied in 

 fields of work other than biology. 



III. 



From the influence in religion of scientific modes of thought we 

 pass to the influence of particular biological conceptions. The former 

 effect comes by way of analogy, example, encouragement and 

 challenge ; inspiring or provokmg kindred or similar modes of 

 thought in the field of theology ; the latter by a collision of opinions 

 upon matters of fact or conjecture which seem to concern both 

 science and religion. 



In the case of Darwinism the story of this collision is familiar, 

 and falls under the heads of evolution and natural selection, the 

 doctrine of descent with modification, and the doctrine of its guidance 

 or determination by the struggle for existence between related 

 varieties. These doctrines, though associated and interdependent, 

 and in popular thought not only combined but confused, must be 

 considered separately. It is true that the ancient doctrine of 

 Evolution, in spite of the ingenuity and ardour of Lamarck, remained 

 a dream tantalising the intellectual ambition of naturalists, until the 

 day when Darwin made it conceivable by suggesting the machinery 

 of its guidance. And, further, the idea of natui-al selection has so 

 eifectively opened the door of research and stimulated observation 

 in a score of principal directions that, even if the Dar^nnian ex- 

 planation became one day much less convincing than, in spite of 

 recent criticism, it now is, yet its passing, supposing it to pass, would 

 leave the doctrine of Evolution immeasurably and permanently 

 strengthened. For in the interests of the theory of selection, " Flir 

 Darwin," as Miiller wrote, facts have been collected which remain in 

 any case evidence of the reality of descent with modification. 



But still, though thus united in the modern history of convictions, 

 though united and confused in the collision of biological and tra- 

 ditional opinion, yet evolution and natural selection must be separated 

 in theological no less than in biological estimation. Evolution seemed 



