COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



a desire to subvert the foundations of religion 

 and of good conduct. Hence it is that even 

 such scientific writers as Mr. Mivart — unable 

 to escape the evidence in favour of Evolution 

 which is supplied by their own studies, yet 

 somewhat desperately clinging to the philosophic 

 views which are founded upon the Doctrine of 

 Creation — are now and then guilty of remarks 

 much better befitting ignorant priests than men 

 who have lived in direct contact with modern 

 scientific thought. That dominance of the stat- 

 ical habit of thinking, which leads Mr. Mivart 

 to prefer the irregular action of " sudden jumps " 

 to the slow but regular operation of natural se- 

 lection, leads him also to assert that the Doc- 

 trine of Evolution, as consistently held by Pro- 

 fessor Huxley, tends toward the intellectual 

 and moral degradation of mankind and toward 

 the genesis of " horrors worse than those of the 

 Parisian Commune ! "^ 



Before proceeding to show how assertions 

 of this sort are, from the evolutionist's point 

 of view, as reckless and absurd as, from Mr. 

 Mivart's point of view, they are justifiable and 

 logical, let us note that the statical habit of 

 thinking is by no means monopolized by the 

 orthodox or by those whose philosophic theo- 

 ries consist mainly of elements inherited from 

 primeval mythology. The progress of scientific 

 ^ Contemporary Review , January, 1872, p. 196. 



