58 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



capacities of judgment and insight, and in no 

 wise fundamentally affects the religious charac- 

 ter. 



It will be well for the world when this lesson 

 has been thoroughly learned, so as to leave no 

 further room for misapprehension. That great 

 progress has already been made in learning it we 

 need no other proof than the mere existence of 

 this " Modern Symposium " on the subject of a 

 future life. Three centuries ago it would have 

 been in strict accordance with propriety for the 

 ten disputants to have adjourned their symposium 

 to some ecclesiastical court, preparatory to a final 

 settlement at Smithfield. One century ago there 

 would have been wholesale vituperation, attended 

 with more or less imputation of unworthy mo- 

 tives, and very likely there would have been some 

 Jesuitical paltering with truth. To-day, however, 

 the tremendous question is discussed on all sides 

 alike by Protestant and Catholic, by transcen- 

 dentalist, sceptic, and positivist with evident 

 candour and praiseworthy courtesy ; for, in spite 

 of Professor Huxley's keen-edged wit and Mr. 

 Harrison's fervent heat, there is no one so fortu- 

 nate as to know these gentlemen who does not 

 know that manly tenderness and good feeling 

 are by no means incompatible with the ability 



