144 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



V. PROFESSOR VON HANSEMANN s SPEECH. 



The speaker began by asserting that Father Was- 

 mann had said in one of his lectures, he believed, 

 in the first of all, that natural science by itself was 

 not entitled to express an opinion regarding the 

 problem of the evolution of animals. Professor von 

 Hansemann, however, believed that natural science 

 alone had a right to express any opinion at all on 

 this subject ; it had therefore been a great mistake 

 to drag religion, theology, and Christianity into this 

 whole discussion. These things ought to be absol 

 utely excluded from scientific deliberations, and, 

 if this were done, it would be a much easier and 

 speedier task to arrive at an agreement, for in his 

 opinion it did not affect the questions under dis 

 cussion at all whether a man had any religious 

 sentiment, whether he was interested in theology, 

 or whether he upheld the Christian theory of the 

 position of man in the universe. 



Before discussing this introduction to von 

 Hansemann s speech, I must make it clear that 

 the first sentence contains a manifest error, 

 which might easily have been avoided. He 

 imputes to me a statement to the effect that the 

 evolution of animals was not a problem within 

 the scope of natural science, whereas I care 

 fully proved the exact contrary in the first of my 

 three lectures. The speaker confused the 



