MODERN EVOLUTION. 219 



forward." Man's Place in Nature was the first of a 

 series of deliverances upon the most serious ques- 

 tions that can occupy the mind; and its successors, 

 the brilliant monograph on Hume, published in 

 1879, and the Romanes Lecture on Evolution and 

 Ethics, delivered at Oxford, i8th of May, 1893, are 

 but expansions of the thesis laid down in that won- 

 derful little volume; wonderful in the prevision which 

 fills it, and in the justification which it has received 

 from all subsequent research, notably in psychology. 

 If the propositions therein maintained are un- 

 shaken, then there is no possible reconciliation be- 

 tween Evolution and Theology, and all the smooth 

 sayings in attempted harmonies between the two, 

 of which Professor Drummond's Ascent of Man is a 

 type, and in speeches at Church Congresses of which 

 that delivered by Archdeacon Wilson (see p. 161) is 

 a type, do but hypnotize the " light half-believers of 

 our casual creeds." To some there are " signs of the 

 times " which point to approaching acquiescence in 

 the sentiment of Ovid, paralleled by a famous pas- 

 sage in Gibbon, that " the existence of the gods is a 

 matter of public policy, and we must believe it ac- 

 cordingly." It looks like the prelude to surrender 

 of what is the cardinal dogma of Christianity when 

 we read in the Archdeacon's address that " the the- 

 ory of Evolution is indeed fatal to certain quasi- 

 mythological doctrines of the Atonement which once 

 prevailed, but it is in harmony with its spirit." For 

 those doctrines, as the Venerable apologist may learn 



