210 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



longer any raison d'etre for such a Being. Evolu- 

 tion, they claimed, takes the place of creation, and 

 eternal, self-existent matter and force exclude an 

 omnipotent personal Creator. " God," we are told, 

 " is the world, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in 

 its being and in its laws, but ever-varying in its cor- 

 relations." A glance at the works of Haeckel, Vogt, 

 Biichner, and others of this school, is sufficient to 

 prove how radical and rabid are the views of these 

 " advanced thinkers." 



It is in accordance with the spirit of such teach- 

 ing that " science," as Caro observes, " conducts God 

 with honor to its frontiers, thanking Him for His 

 provisional services." It is such science that de- 

 clares that " faith in a personal and living God is 

 the origin and fundamental cause of our miserable 

 social condition ; " and that advances such views as 

 these : " The true road to liberty, to equality, and to 

 happiness, is Atheism. No safety on earth, so long 

 as man holds on by a thread to heaven. Let noth- 

 ing henceforth shackle the spontaneity of the hu- 

 man mind. Let us teach man that there is no other 

 God than himself; that he is the Alpha and Omega 

 of all things, the superior being, and the most real 

 reality." 



It was in consequence of the circulation of such 

 views among the masses, that Virchow and others 

 declared Evolution responsible, not only for the at- 

 tempts made by Hodel and Nobeling on the life of 

 the emperor of Germany, but also for all the miser- 

 ies and horrors of the Paris Commune. For the 

 theory of Evolution, in its atheistic form, is one of 



