4 THE PHILOSOPHY OF EVOLUTION 



revolution in astronomy made it of necessity destructive to the 

 external coatings and integuments of religion. At the same 

 time, it stimulated the growth of a new metaphysic, the first 

 manifestations of which we owe to Bruno, and which was 

 destined to react upon theology through the idealistic specula- 

 tions of the last two centuries. 



Ill 



The disintegration of those factors which are merely 

 temporal, and doomed to dissolution, in Christianity, has 

 been advancing so rapidly, through the application of various 

 critical methods and the growth of sciences, that little of a 

 purely destructive influence was to be expected from the 

 theory of Evolution. Some points, however, may arrest 

 attention. 



Preceded by geology and primitive anthropology, Evolu- 

 tion dealt a death-blow at the assumptions of human self- 

 conceit. We have accepted the probability of man's 

 development from less highly organised types of animal life 

 with tolerable good-humour, after a certain amount of 

 rebellious disgust. The study of pre-historical humanity, 

 together with the suggestions of the Evolution hypothesis, 

 render any doctrine of a Fall more and more untenable. 

 Instead of Paradise, and man's sudden lapse from primal 

 innocence, we are now convinced that history implies a slow 

 and toilsome upward effort on the part of our ancestors from 

 the outset. 



Preceded, in like manner, by the demonstrated theories 

 of Conservation and Correlation of Energies, Evolution 

 destroyed the old conception of miraculous occurrences. A 

 miracle, a freak of power, is no longer conceivable in Nature ; 

 and if Lazarus were raised from the dead before our eyes, we 

 should first ascertain the fact, and next proceed to investigate 

 the law of the phenomenon. Evolution, in the last place, 

 superseded scholastic teleology by more rational notions of 

 order. The habit of mind which recognised particular design 

 and providential interference in special adaptations of living 



