HAECKEL AND THE MONISTIC CREED 45 



ashamed of it. After abolishing all human ac- 

 countability by his supposed abolition of a per- 

 sonal God, there could be for Haeckel no immor- 

 ality in such an act. It caused him neither any 

 visible qualms of conscience, nor the slightest em- 

 barrassment to admit the falsehood when de- 

 tected. 



"Evolution from moneron to man," became 

 the cry of the new "enlightenment." It was 

 reechoed from press and platform. It was made 

 the creed of the schools. Acceptance of it was 

 the hall-mark of intelligence. The literature of 

 sociology is almost entirely based upon it. What 

 was the attitude of the Catholic Church? 



Evolution was for her an old familiar theme. 

 She had weighed it unafraid centuries before, and 

 was not to be perturbed by it now. She merely 

 asked for facts and proofs. It has always been 

 her way. Yet nothing could have been more tan- 

 talizing than this to the modern theorist, who had 

 leaped to rash conclusions and now imperatively 

 demanded that they must be accepted forthwith, 

 and on his very word. He was the more insistent 

 in that proofs were wholly wanting. But the 

 Church was not concerned about the question as 

 a scientific controversy, though she was then as 

 always glad to accept any evidence. Her sole 

 duty was to preserve the world from religious 

 error and the menace that this implied to morality, 

 to liberty and to every form of human welfare. 



