94 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



wreck and ruin of civilization, not to have been 

 aware that they were proposing as a certainty 

 what has never been established and never can 

 be proved; that in no important step of their en- 

 tire process could they ever claim more than a 

 probability at the most, and that even this was 

 often entirely wanting; that finally in many in- 

 stances they were drawing conclusions in defiance 

 of all right reasoning. Hence the dreadful con- 

 sequences that were inevitably to follow and are 

 yet to come. 



While on the one hand we find Huxley ab- 

 surdly proclaiming to the world that one of the 

 greatest merits of evolution was that it "occupies 

 a position of complete and irreconcilable antag- 

 onism" to the Catholic Church, 9 on the other 

 we have the striking irony of fact that this Church, 

 supposed to be irreconcilably opposed to evolu- 

 tion, has given to science five out of the eleven 

 founders of the various branches of biology, the 

 one science which stood in closest relation to the 

 doctrine which was fabled to be anathema to her. 

 It will be interesting, therefore, to explain still 

 somewhat more definitely where Catholic evo- 

 lutionists stand on this question. 



""Darwiniana," p. 147. 



