398 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



Evolution and Creationism. 



Will it not be the same in the still greater and 

 longer contest between creationism, in the sense of 

 special creationism, and evolutionism? From what 

 precedes it appears almost certain that our reply 

 must be in the affirmative. And when the smoke of 

 battle shall have cleared away ; when all animosity 

 shall have been extinguished, and men shall have a 

 concern only for the truth, and not for certain indi- 

 vidual opinions ; when they shall be more disposed 

 to conserve the interests of genuine science than 

 those of mere hypothesis ; then will it be evident to 

 the world that both victors and vanquished were 

 making for the same objective point, all according to 

 their lights, and that the very earnestness and perse- 

 verance with which those in the wrong led a forlorn 

 hope, but contributed in the end towards making the 

 truth more conspicuous and towards rendering the 

 stronghold of science more impregnable. Then, too, 

 it will be manifest, that although truth was on the 

 side championed by Aristotle, Sts. Athanasius, Greg- 

 ory of Nyssa, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, by 

 Buff on, Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, Lamarck, Spencer, 

 Darwin, Huxley, Mivart and their compeers, never- 

 theless the opponents of the evolutionary idea, the 

 Fathers and Schoolmen who favored the doctrine of 

 special creation, the Linnseuses, the Cuviers and the 

 Agassizs, who resolutely and consistently combated 

 Evolution to the last, were all along but helping on 

 and corroborating what they were intent on weaken- 

 ing and destroying. In this case, as in so many 



