Evolutionism and Darwinism. 69 



creative act, but implies a process extending 

 over the immensity of geological ages, is ad 

 mitted by everyone at all conversant with the gen 

 eral results of modern astronomy and geology. 

 And &quot; so far as the animal world is concerned,&quot; 

 we have the high authority of Professor Huxley 

 for the assurance that &quot; evolution is no longer a 

 speculation, bul: a statement of historical fact.&quot; / 

 Observation has done for the natural sciences pre 

 cisely the reverse of what criticism has done for 

 the Homeric poems it has turned a number of 

 separate stories into a continuous epic, an epic 

 which traces the world-events from that homo 

 geneous chaos &quot;in the beginning&quot; to the defi 

 nite, coherent, heterogeneous cosmos of to-day. 

 While, however, evolutionism is generally accept 

 ed in some form or other, theistic or naturalistic, 

 rationalistic or agnostic (in itself it is absolutely 

 neutral between these metaphysical theories), there 

 is not the same unanimity of verdict, even in the 

 scientific world, about Darwinism. There is no 

 doubt, I think, that the vast majority of what Pro 

 fessor Huxley calls the &quot; hodmen of science&quot; ac 

 cept Darwin s theory of natural selection, both in 

 itself and in Darwin s extensive application of it. 

 But it is yet a significant fact that leaders, perhaps 

 the leaders, of the scientific world give only a very 



