380 STRAUSS' COMPARISON. 



the earth's surface and external circumstances gradually 

 became favourable to the further development of particular 

 forms, these attained a higher grade of development than 

 they had before known, until at length the highest form of 

 a particular type appeared, became dominant for a time, and 

 died out, as other forms of primordial life-stuff were slowly 

 progressing towards perfection in the case of other and per- 

 haps altogether different types, destined also to endure for a 

 time and pass away in their turn without leaving one single 

 representative. These and many other ideas might be sup- 

 ported by evidence at our disposal, and though they would 

 be scoffed at and treated with great contempt by the specu- 

 lative naturalists of our time, they may be more conside- 

 rately treated by the coming race. 



Strauss considers that those who decry " the doctrine of 

 the descent of man from the monkey," and find it godless, 

 and " an outrage on the dignity of revelation," exhibit much 

 the same taste as the people "who prefer a Count or a 

 Baron, impoverished by his dissolute life, to a citizen who 

 has won his way by dint of energy and talent." But he does 

 not, I think, quite distinguish between the views propounded 

 by Mr. Darwin and the more advanced doctrines which are 

 being elaborated by his followers. If living beings have 

 been formed from the non-living by evolution, we cannot 

 say they have been designed and created by God ; and we 

 should be inconsistent if we also maintained that God had 

 breathed into them the breath of life. Strauss undoubtedly 

 abandons altogether the idea of a God, but it is by no 

 means certain that Mr. Darwin goes so far. Evolutionists 

 of Mr. Darwin's school might, I think, be disposed to admit 

 the formula, " God created primordial living matter," bu 



