THE CHURCH AND MAN'S ORIGIN 193 



The tyranny of the Zeitgeist in the matter of evolution is 

 overwhelming to a degree of which outsiders have no idea; 

 not only does it influence as I must admit that it does in my 

 own case our manners of thinking, but there is the oppression 

 as in the days of the "terror." How very few of the leaders 

 of science dare tell the truth concerning their own state of 

 mind! How many feel themselves forced in public to do lip- 

 service to a cult they do not believe in! As professor T. H. 

 Morgan intimates, it is only too true that many of these who 

 would on no account be guilty of an act which they recognize 

 to be dishonest, nevertheless speak and write habitually as if 

 evolution were an absolute certainty as well established as the 

 law of gravitation. 3 



But while this cringing to public opinion, and 

 this fear of being considered reactionary and 

 being overlooked, in consequence, for speaking 

 the truth plainly to a generation that does not 

 wish to hear it, is as natural as it is greatly to be 

 deplored, yet as Dr. Dwight adds : "That there 

 is a large body of honest workers is a fact to 

 glory in." The attitude of the Church is such a 

 fact in which Catholics have every right to glory. 

 For not merely is evolution in the case of man's 

 body not proved, as she declares; not merely does 

 the harmony of design in God's plan fully explain 

 that similarity, which we should consistently ex- 

 pect to exist; but evolution, as applied to man, 

 is unscientific and contrary to the facts of nature 

 and the laws of evolution itself. As the same 

 writer, whose authority no one will question in 

 this matter, lucidly says: 



* Dr. Thomas Dwight, "Thoughts of a Catholic Anatomist," 

 pp. 20, 21. 



