118 DARWINIAN INTERESTS 



' Principles.' ' I know of no brighter example of heroism of 

 its kind,' he exclaims, and adds in telling phrase : 



Well may he be proud of a super-structure, raised on the 

 foundations of an insecure doctrine, when he finds that he 

 can underpin it and substitute a new foundation ; and after 

 all is finished, survey his edifice, not only more secure, but 

 more harmonious in its proportions than it was before ; for 

 assuredly the biological chapters of the tenth edition of the 

 * Principles ' are more in harmony with the doctrine of slow 

 changes in the history of our planet, than were their counter- 

 parts in the former editions. 



To the astronomer critics he pointed out the limits of mathe- 

 matical infallibility : as was said on another occasion, mathe- 

 matics is a mill which grinds out results very accurately, but 

 the value of the results depends on the material put into the 

 mill. Did the physicists, calculating (on somewhat uncertain 

 data) the rate of the earth's cooling, assert that evolution 

 claimed an impossibly long period, the biologists replied that 

 they took their time from geology, and if the geological clock 

 needed speeding up, they would automatically follow suit. 



Finally he turned to the new science of Pre-historic Archae- 

 ology, which was holding its first International Congress at 

 Norwich. It was a science which led men where hitherto they 

 had not ventured to tread where science clashes with the old 

 accepted Scripture chronology, where separation can hardly 

 be made between its physical and its spiritual aspect. Yet 

 as Truth (in Disraeli's words) is the sovereign passion of 

 mankind, religion and science must speak peace to one 

 another. 



But [he added] if they would thus work in harmony, both 

 parties must beware how they fence with that most dangerous 

 of all two-edged weapons, Natural Theology ; a science, 

 falsely so called, when, not content with trustfully accepting 

 truths hostile to any presumptuous standard it may set up, 

 it seeks to weigh the infinite in the balance of the finite, and 

 shifts its ground to meet the requirements of every new 

 fact that science establishes, and every old error that science 

 exposes. Thus pursued, Natural Theology is to the scien- 



