90 PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION PART n 



be an everlasting check to all kind of superstitious 

 delusion, and, consequently, will be useful as long 

 as the world endures.' Hume certainly did not 

 overrate the force of the blow which he dealt at 

 supernaturalism, one of a series of attacks which, in 

 France and Britain, carried the war into the camp 

 of the enemy, and changed its tactics from aggressive 

 to defensive. But none the less is it true that the 

 * superstitious delusions' against which he planted 

 his logical artillery were killed neither by argument 

 nor by evidence. Delusion and error do not perish 

 by controversial warfare. They perish under the 

 slow and silent operation of changes to which they 

 are unable to adapt themselves. The atmosphere 

 is altered : the organism can neither respond nor 

 respire ; therefore, it dies. Thus, save where lurks 

 the ignorance which is its breath of life, has wholly 

 perished belief in witchcraft ; thus, too, is slowly 

 perishing belief in miracles, and, with this, belief 

 in the miraculous events, the incarnation, resurrection, 

 and ascension of Jesus, on which the fundamental 

 tenets of Christianity are based, and in which lies so 

 largely the secret of its long hostility to knowledge. 



