The Making of Species 



extreme caution, the onslaught can have but one 

 result the attacker will be repulsed with heavy 

 loss, and the onlookers will have a higher opinion 

 of his valour than of his common sense. 



The theologians were in the unfortunate posi- 

 tion of warriors who do not know what it is 

 against which they are fighting ; they confounded 

 natural selection with evolution, and directed the 

 main force of their attack against the latter, 

 under the impression that they were fighting 

 the Darwinian theory. 



It was the misfortune of those theologians that 

 it is possible to prove that evolution, or, at any 

 rate, some evolution has occurred ; they thus 

 kicked against the pricks with disastrous results 

 to themselves. When this attack had been 

 repulsed men believed that the theory of natural 

 selection had been demonstrated, that it was 

 as much a law of nature as that of gravitation. 

 What had really happened was that the fact of 

 evolution had been proved, and the theory of 

 natural selection obtained the credit. Men 

 thought that Darwinism was evolution. Had 

 the theologians admitted evolution but denied 

 the ability of natural selection to explain it, the 

 Darwinian theory, in all probability, would not 

 have gained the ascendency which it now enjoys. 



To us who are able to look back dispassionately 

 upon the biological warfare of the last century, 

 Darwin's opponents or the majority of them 



8 



