78 ANDREW JACKSON HOWE. 



x 



averse to being driven into any particular state of 

 belief. When an argument is presented in a threaten- 

 ing way, it seldom carries conviction with it. 



An objectionable manner of presenting the doc- 

 trine of evolution is to ask an intelligent person if he 

 be a believer in Darwinism ! The questioner seems 

 to be short-sighted enough to suppose that an indi- 

 vidual must take Darwinism in its entirety, or wholly 

 discredit the doctrine. There are educated people in 

 abundance who find reasons for crediting much which 

 Darwin has taught, yet do not believe in the spon- 

 taneous generation theory or the Simian origin of 

 man. . Darwinism is not a structure built of blocks 

 depending upon one another, like those of an arch, 

 so that if one be removed, the remainder must neces- 

 sarily tumble and fall ; but it is an edifice erected 

 after the designs of numerous architects, each of whom 

 has contributed an independent part that may be re- 

 moved without fatally weakening the main portion of 

 the temple. The building material, drawn from many 

 sources, is somewhat incongruous, yet the architecture 

 reveals the cunning of a master mind. There is 

 enough of truth in Darwinism to continue in some 

 form forever, yet the unreal and unreasonable in it 

 W 7 ill in time meet the fate of the feeble and the 

 false. 



While Darwinism and the doctrine of evolution 

 are substantially identical in many phases, if a differ- 

 ence between them in certain other important features 

 be sought, a plain distinction may be found. There 

 are many points in biological science that do not war 

 against the theory of evolution, yet are hostile to the 

 Darwinian form of it. Mr. Huxley, in one of his ad- 



