EXCURSIONS OF AN EVOLUTIONIST 



what alternative is to survive the inevitable 

 fate of all such misguided attempts ; and here 

 Dr. Biichner and the Pope will be found to 

 disagree. While on the one hand it is held 

 that the course of modern philosophic thought 

 is so distinctly toward materialism that every 

 one who is not a materialist is behind the age, 

 on the other hand it is prophesied that, out of 

 sheer weariness of the scepticism that is the 

 perpetual outcome of free inquiry, there will 

 eventually be brought about a renaissance of 

 the ages of faith. I do not know that it can be 

 said precisely how far these expectations go. 

 Probably it is not expected that crusades or 

 pilgrimages to Compostella will again become 

 fashionable in the complex industrial society of 

 the future ; perhaps it is not expected that 

 leaders of scientific thought will accept the mir- 

 acle of St. Januarius, for the Catholic Church 

 has oftentimes known how to be judiciously lax 

 about such matters ; but there is no doubt a 

 vague expectation that, in spite of the inde- 

 pendence of thought which scientific studies are 

 fostering, a line will somehow be drawn beyond 

 which men shall agree to submit their judgment 

 to that of the Church. It is not Catholics only 

 who make this tacit assumption : it is made, in 

 one form or another, by every one who argues 

 that his own particular orthodoxy is destined to 

 survive the shocks of scientific scepticism ; and it 

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