260 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



are opposed to the progress (in their own minds or in that 

 of their children or dependants) of physical scientific truth 

 the natural revelation through a mistaken estimate of 

 its religious bearings, while there are others who are zeal- 

 ous in its promotion from a precisely similar error. For 

 the sake of both these, then, the author may perhaps be 

 pardoned for entering slightly on very elementary matters 

 relating to the question whether evolution or Darwinism 

 has any, and if any, what, bearing on theology. 



There are at least two classes of men who will certainly 

 assert that they have a very important and highly-signifi- 

 cant bearing upon it. 



One of these classes consists of persons zealous for reli 

 gion indeed, but who identify orthodoxy with their own 

 private interpretation of Scripture or with narrow opinions 

 in which they have been brought up opinions doubtless 

 widely spread, but at the same time destitute of any dis- 

 tinct and authoritative sanction on the part of the Chris- 

 tian Church. 



The other class is made up of men hostile to religion, 

 and who are glad to make use of any and every argument 

 which they think may possibly be available against it. 



Some individuals within this latter class may not be- 

 lieve in the existence of God, but may yet abstain from 

 publicly avowing this absence of belief, contenting them- 

 selves with denials of " creation " and " design," though 

 these denials are really consequences of their attitude of 

 mind respecting the most important and fundamental of all 

 beliefs. 



Without a distinct belief in a personal God it is impos- 

 sible to have any religion worthy of the name, and no one 

 can at the same time accept the Christian religion and deny 

 the dogma of creation. 



" I believe in God," " the Creator of Heaven and 

 Earth," the very first clauses of the Apostles' Creed, for- 



