146 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a humble monkey rather than of a man who employs his knowl- 

 edge and eloquence in misrepresenting those who are wearing out 

 their lives in the search for truth/' 



This shot reverberated through England, and indeed through 

 other countries. 



The utterances of the most brilliant prelate of the Anglican 

 Church received a sort of antiphonal response from the leaders 

 of the English Catholics. In an address before the Academia, 

 which had been organized to combat " science falsely so called," 

 Cardinal Manning declared his " abhorrence " of the new view of 

 Nature, and described it as " a brutal philosophy to wit, there is 

 no God, and the ape is our Adam." 



These attacks from such eminent sources set the clerical fash- 

 ion which prevailed for several years. One eminent clerical re- 

 viewer, in spite of Darwin's thirty years of quiet labor, and in 

 spite of the powerful summing up of his book, prefaced a diatribe 

 by saying that Darwin "might have been more modest had he 

 given some slight reason for dissenting from the views generally 

 entertained." Another distinguished clergyman, vice-president 

 of a Protestant institute to combat "dangerous" science, de- 

 clared Darwinism " an attempt to dethrone God." Another critic 

 spoke of persons accepting the Darwinian views as " under the 

 frenzied inspiration of the inhaler of mephitic gas," and of Dar- 

 win's argument as "a jungle of fanciful assumption." Another 

 spoke of Darwin's views as suggesting that " God is dead," and 

 declared that Darwin's work " does open violence to everything 

 which the Creator himself has told us in the Scriptures of the 

 methods and results of his work." Still another theological au- 

 thority declares : " If the Darwinian theory is true, Genesis is a 

 lie, the whole framework of the book of life falls to pieces, and 

 the revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it, is a delu- 

 sion and a snare." Another, who had shown excellent qualities 

 as an observing naturalist, declared the Darwinian view " a huge 

 imposture from the beginning." 



Echoes came from America. One review, the organ of the most 

 widespread of American religious sects, declared that Darwin 

 " was attempting to befog and to pettifog the whole question " ; 

 another declared Darwin's views " the only form of infidelity 

 from which Christianity had anything to fear " ; another, repre- 

 senting the American branch of the Anglican Church, poured 

 contempt over Darwin as " sophistical and illogical," and then 

 plunged into an exceedingly dangerous line of argument in the 

 following words : " If this hypothesis be true, then is the Bible an 

 unbearable fiction ; . . . then have Christians for nearly two thou- 

 sand years been duped by a monstrous lie. . . . Darwin requires 

 us to disbelieve the authoritative word of the Creator." A lead- 



