480 Darwinism and Religious Thought 



whither must be asked, and the particular thing measured as part of 

 a series. Thus measured it is not less truly important, but it may be 

 important in a lower degree. On the other hand, and for exactly the 

 same reason, nothing that is real is unimportant. The "failures" 

 are not mere mistakes. We see them, in St Augustine's words, as 

 "scholars faults which men praise in hope of fruit." 



We cannot safely trace the origin of the evolutionistic method to 

 the influence of natural science. The view is tenable that theology 

 led the way. Probably this is a case of alternate and reciprocal debt. 

 Quite certainly the evolutionist method in theology, in Christian 

 history, and in the estimate of scripture, has received vast reinforce- 

 ment from biology, in which evolution has been the ever present and 

 ever victorious conception. 



(2) The second effect named is the new Avillingness of Christian 

 thinkers to take definite account of religious experience. This is 

 related to Darwin through the general pressure upon religious faith 

 of scientific criticism. The great advance of our knowledge of 

 organisms has been an important element in the general advance of 

 science. It has acted, by the varied requirements of the theory of 

 organisms, upon all other branches of natural inquiry, and it held 

 for a long time that leading place in public attention which is now 

 occupied by speculative physics. Consequently it contributed largely 

 to our present estimation of science as the supreme judge in all 

 matters of inquiry 1 , to the supposed destruction of mystery and the 

 disparagement of metaphysic which marked the last age, as well as 

 to the just recommendation of scientific method in branches of 

 learning where the direct acquisitions of natural science had no 

 place. 



Besides this, the new application of the idea of law and mechanical 

 regularity to the organic world seemed to rob faith of a kind of 

 refuge. The romantics had, as Berthelot 2 shows, appealed to life to 

 redress the judgments drawn from mechanism. Now, in Spencer, 

 evolution gave us a vitalist mechanic or mechanical vitalism, and the 

 appeal seemed cut off. We may return to this point later when we con- 

 sider evolution ; at present I only endeavour to indicate that general 

 pressure of scientific criticism which drove men of faith to seek the 

 grounds of reassurance in a science of their own ; in a method of 

 experiment, of observation, of hypothesis checked by known facts. It 

 is impossible for me to do more than glance across the threshold of 

 this subject. But it is necessary to say that the method is in an 

 elementary stage of revival. The imposing success that belongs to 



1 F. R. Tennant : "The Being of God in the light of Physical Science," in Essays on 

 some theological questions of the day. London, 1905. 



2 Evolutionisme et Platonisme, pp. 45, 46, 47. Paris, 1908. 



