CH, 11.] ANTHROPOMORPHIC THEISM. 39? 



arena of pliilosophic controversy, was never triumphantly 

 taken up. It was Mr. Darwin who first, by his discovery of 

 natural selection, supplied the champions of science with the 

 resistless weapon by which to vanquish, in this their chief 

 stronghold, the champions of theology. And this is doubt- 

 less foremost among the causes of the intense hostility which 

 all consistent theologians feel towards Mr. Darwin. This 

 antagonism has been generated, not so much by the silly 

 sentimentalism which regards the Darwinian theory as 

 derogatory to human dignity; not so much by the knowledge 

 that the theory is incompatible with that ancient Hebrew 

 cosmogony which still fascinates the theological imagination ; 

 as by the perception, partly vague and partly definite, that 

 in natural selection there has been assigned an adequate 

 cause for the marvellous phenomena of adaptation, , which 

 had formerly been regarded as clear proofs of beneficent 

 creative contrivance. It needs but to take into the account 

 the other agencies in organic evolution besides the one so 

 admirably illustrated by Mr. Darwin, it needs but to re- 

 member that life is essentially a process of equilibration, 

 both direct and indirect, in order to be convinced that the 

 Doctrine of Evolution has once for all deprived natural 

 theology of the materials upon which until lately it 

 subsisted.* 



These apparent indications of creative forethought are 

 just so many illustrations of the scientific theorem that life, 

 whether physical or psychical, is the continuous adjustment 

 of inner relations to outer relations. " On this fact," says 

 Mr. Barratt, " depends the usual argument to prove the 

 existence of God from design or final causes ; the whole 

 strength of which is produced by a mere verbal sleight of 



* That Darwinism has given the death-blow to teleolncry is admitted by 

 Bchleiden, — an unwilling witness. See Biichner, Die Dnririnsche Theorie, p. 

 159. liaeckel also says : — " Wir erblicken darin [in Darwin's discovery] den 

 definitiven Tod al'cr teleologischen und vitalistischen Beurtheilung der Or. 

 ganismeo." Generelle Morj:iholo(/ie der Organismcn, torn. i. p. 160. 



