10 FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 



the world in the following year. The author of 

 Omphalos was a keen and enthusiastic naturalist 

 held fast in the grip of the narrowest of religious 

 creeds. We learn with great interest that he 

 and others were by Lyell's advice prepared 

 beforehand for the central thoughts of the Origin. 

 To the new teaching all the naturalist side of his 

 nature responded, but from it the religious side 

 recoiled. Religion conquered in the strife, but 

 the naturalist found comfort in the perfectly 

 logical conclusion that : 



' any breach in the circular course of nature could be con- 

 ceived only on the supposition that the object created bore 

 false witness to past processes, which had never taken place.' ' 



Thus the divergence between the literal inter- 

 pretation of Scripture and the conclusions of both 

 geologist and evolutionist were for this remarkable 

 man reconciled by the conviction : 



' that there had been no gradual modification of the 

 surface of the earth, or slow development of organic forms, 

 but that when the catastrophic act of creation took place, 

 the world presented, instantly, the structural appearance of 

 a planet on which life had long existed.'* 



Philip Gosse could not but believe that the 

 thoughts which had brought so much comfort 

 to himself would prove a blessing to others also. 

 He offered Omphalos 'with a glowing gesture, 

 to atheists and Christians alike. . . . But, 

 alas ! atheists and Christians alike looked at it and 

 laughed, and threw it away '. 3 Charles Kingsley 



1 1. c., 120, 121. * 1. c., 120. * 1. c., 122. 



