WHAT IS DARWINISM? 279 



that organisms originated by the Almighty Creator 

 could not be endowed with the power of producing 

 similar organisms, or slightly dissimilar organisms, 

 without successive interventions. Then he begs the 

 very question in dispute, and that, too, in the face of 

 the primal command, " Be fruitful and multiply," and 

 its consequences in every natural birth. If the actual 

 facts could be ignored, how nicely the parallel would 

 run ! " The idea involves a contradiction." For an 

 animal to make an animal, or a plant to make a plant, 

 supposes it to select carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and 

 nitrogen, to combine these into cellulose and proto- 

 plasm, to join with these some phosphorus, lime, etc., 

 to build them into structures and usefully-adjusted 

 organs. A man who can believe that plants and ani- 

 mals can do this (not, indeed, in the crude way sug- 

 gested, but in the appointed way) "might as well 

 believe in God." Yes, verily, and so he probably 

 will, in spite of all that atheistical philosophers have 

 to offer, if not harassed and confused by such argu- 

 ments and statements as these. 



There is a long line of gradually-increasing diver- 

 gence from the ultra-orthodox view of Dr. Hodge 

 through those of such men as Sir William Thomson, 

 Herschel, Argyll, Owen, Mivart, "Wallace, and Dar- 

 win, down to those of Strauss, Vogt, and Biichner. 

 To strike the line with telling power and good effect, 

 it is necessary to aim at the right place. Excellent 

 as the present volume is in motive and clearly as it 

 shows that Darwinism may bear an atheistic as well 

 as a theistic interpretation, we fear that it will not 

 contribute much to the reconcilement of science and 

 religion. 



