PROFESSOR VIRCHOW AND EVOLUTION. 409 



the intrusion of a bullet or the blow of a club, can fly 

 away into other regions of space if, abandoning this 

 heathen notion, you consent to approach the subject in 

 the only way in which approach is possible if you con- 

 sent to make your soul a poetic rendering of a phenome- 

 non which, as I have taken more pains than anybody 

 else to show you, refuses the yoke of ordinary physical 

 laws then I, for one, would not object to this exercise 

 of ideality.' I say it strongly, but with good temper, 

 that the theologian, or the defender of theology, who 

 hacks and scourges me for putting the question in this 

 light is guilty of black ingratitude. 



Notwithstanding the agreement thus far pointed 

 out, there are certain points in Professor Virchow's 

 lecture to which I should feel inclined to take excep- 

 tion. I think it was hardly necessary to associate the 

 theory of evolution with Socialism; it may be even 

 questioned whether it was correct to do so. As Lange 

 remarks, the aim of Socialism, or of its extreme leaders, 

 is to overthrow the existing systems of government, 

 and anything that helps them to this end is welcomed, 

 whether it be atheism or papal infallibility. For long 

 years the Socialists saw Church and State united against 

 them, and both were therefore regarded with a common 

 hatred. But no sooner does a serious difference arise 

 between Church and State, than a portion of the So- 

 cialists begin immediately to dally with the former.* 

 The experience of the last German elections illustrates 

 Lange's position. Far nobler and truer to my mind 

 than this fear of promoting Socialism by a scientific 

 theory which the best and soberest heads in the world 

 have substantially accepted, is the position assumed 

 by Helmholtz, who in his ' Popular Lectures ' describes 



'Geschichte des Materialismus,' 2 Auflagp, vol. ii. p. 588. 



