WHAT IS EVOLUTION? 51 



This neutral attitude of science has been strongly 

 insisted on by Dr. Wigand l in his elaborate work 

 Darwinismus, in which he holds that this doctrine 

 does not represent a definite and consistent scientific 

 effort and result, but merely an indefinite and con 

 fused movement of the mind of the age/ and that 

 science may ultimately prove its most dangerous foe. 

 In like manner the veteran German physiologist 

 Virchow, in an able address before the Assembly 

 of German Naturalists at Munich, 2 taking the spon 

 taneous generation of organisms and the descent of 

 man from ape-like ancestors as test questions, argues 

 in the most conclusive manner that neither can be 

 held as a result of scientific investigation, but that 

 both must be regarded as problems as yet unsolved. 



But in the face of such opinions as these, we are 

 struck with the fact that eminent men of science in 

 England and America inform us that science demands 

 our belief in the theory of evolution, and this in its 

 atheistic as well as its theistic phase. When, how 

 ever, we ask reasons for this demand, we find that 

 those who make it are themselves obliged to admit 

 the absence of a scientific basis for the doctrine. 



For example, I may refer to the able and elaborate 

 address delivered a few years ago before the American 

 Association by its President, Professor Marsh. He 



introduction of new forms, as distinguished from descent with gradual 

 modification. 



1 Dr. Albert Wigand, Darwinismus, 1875-7. 



2 On the Liberty of Science, 1877. 



D2 



