A SCIENTIFIC CREED OUTWORN. 89 
to make them proselytes, There can be little doubt that 
misgivings regarding the truth of their claims began to 
haunt the champions of the Darwinian hypothesis. They 
were just then masters of the whole field of scientific 
thought. They had brought all science to the feet of 
Darwin. The few benighted dissenters who still held 
out against the doctrine were looked upon as not worthy 
even of contempt. The whole world had adopted the 
creed of evolution. Was it wantonness then, or was it 
conscience, that prompted Huxley in what is now a his- 
torically famous speech, delivered at the unveiling of a 
statue to Darwin in the Museum at South Kensington, 
to openly declare that it would be wrong to suppose 
“that an authoritative sanction was given by the ceremony 
to the current ideas concerning evolution?” Well 
might his hearers be astonished! But they must have 
held their breath, when they heard*him add boldly and 
bluntly, in no uncertain tones, that “science commits sui- 
cide when it adopts a creed.”’ A creed, indeed! What 
had science been doing in the field of evolution ever since 
Darwin has given his doctrine to the world, but proclaim- 
ing its faith in the Darwinian creed? 
There was no blinking the inevitable conclusions. 
Both Huxley on the platform and Spencer in the “Nine- 
teenth Century” had acknowledged before the whole 
world that they had lost faith in the idol which for thirty 
years they had so vociferously worshipped. It is true that 
both Spencer and Huxley might have intended to warn 
biologists merely against a too implicit faith in natural se- 
lection or the survival of the fittest. But even so, the 
position of their followers was little to be envied. Their 
leaders had confidently assured them that Darwin had 
given to the world coveted knowledge never known until 
.he had discovered it. This had been loudly and confi- 
dently proclaimed from the housetops of science; and 
