1886 'EVOLUTION OF THEOLOGY' 437 



The " English Naples " is rather Florentine so far as a 

 bitter cold east wind rather below than above 0C. goes, 

 but from all I hear it is a deal better than London, and 

 I am picking up in spite of it. I wish I were a 

 Holothuria, and could get on without my viscera. I 

 should do splendidly then. 



Here he wrote a long article on the " Evolution 

 of Theology" (Collected Essays, iv. 287) which 

 appeared in the March and April numbers of the 

 Nineteenth Century. It was a positive statement of 

 the views he had arrived at, which underlay the very 

 partial and therefore misleading exposition of 

 them possible in controversy. He dealt with the 

 subject, not with reference to the truth or falsehood 

 of the notions under review, but purely as a question 

 of anthropology, " a department of biology to which 

 I have at various times given a good deal of atten- 

 tion." Starting with the familiar ground of the 

 Hebrew Scriptures, he thus explains the paleonto- 

 logical method he proposes to adopt : 



In the venerable record of ancient life, miscalled a 

 book, when it is really a library comparable to a selection 

 of works from English literature between the times of 

 Beda and those of Milton, we have the stratified deposits 

 (often confused and even with their natural order in- 

 verted) left by the stream of the intellectual and moral 

 life of Israel during many centuries. And, embedded in 

 these strata, there are numerous remains of forms of 

 thought which once lived, and which, though often unfortun- 

 ately mere fragments, are of priceless value to the anthropo- 

 logist Our task is to resciie these from their relatively un- 

 important surroundings, and by careful comparison with 



