PBOFESSOK V1ECHOW AND EVOLUTION. 409 



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 consent to 

 make your soul a poetic rendering of a phenomenon 

 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 thup far pointed out, 

 there are certain points in Professor Virchow's lecture 

 to which I should feel inclined to take exception. 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 any- 

 thing 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 

 Socialists begin immediately to dally with the former. 1 

 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 



1 'Gesciachte des Materialismus,' 2 Auilage, vol. ii. p. 638. 



