Scientific Evolution. 141 



theology not only possible but easy arid natural. Never- 

 theless, it has been shown* that such assimilation is 

 thus easy and natural, and so far as the present writer is 

 aware, not even an attempt at a reply has yet been made 

 to the statements and reasonings there brought forward. 

 Christians may surely be pardoned if they consider this 

 a proof case, and assert that the religion that has borne 

 this strain will bear any that physical science can bring 

 to bear upon it. It might also be similarly shown that 

 various other scientific questions (by some supposed to 

 have a tendency conflicting with Christian dogma) such 

 as the antiquity of man, the phenomena of savage life, 

 the necessity of nervous action to human thought, etc. 

 are beside the question, are indifferent matters in this 

 relation, and necessarily futile as a basis of attack on the 

 Church, and that, of course, whether the Church's claims 

 be well or ill founded. On the other hand, it would not 

 be difficult to show that there is a tendency in modern 

 science notably in biology to direct men's minds in 

 the opposite direction. That is to say, to direct them 

 towards conceptions once generally current, -f but which 

 have, during the last three centuries, gradually passed 



* Contemporary Review, January, 1872, and the last chapter of 

 "Lessons from Nature" (Murray, 1876). 



f This is particularly striking in Mr. Lewes's " Problems of Life 

 and Mind," although reference thereto will come better under the 

 head of philosophic than of scientific evolution. 



