322 Evolution as Related to Religious Thought. 



that the days of Genesis were geologic periods of indefinite 

 length. Why, yes, of course ! Why hadn't anybody thought 

 of it before ? But while this discovery did much to soften 

 the fall of Orthodoxy, it was soon perceived to be invalid 

 by the more intelligent and sincere. Thus was accomplished 

 the first serious abridgment of the claim of Biblical infalli- 

 bility. It is not too much to say that the intelligence of 

 the church is at the present time wholly committed to the 

 immeasurable antiquity of the earth and of the cosmos, and 

 hardly less so to the conclusion that a literal rendering of 

 the six days of Genesis is the only rendering of which the 

 document admits. Following quickly on the discovery of 

 the earth's antiquity was the discovery of the antiquity of 

 man. This is now reckoned from five hundred thousand to 

 a million years. There is more danger of reckoning too 

 short a time than one too long. For the theological fall of 

 man this substituted a rise through many stages of pro- 

 gression. It was bitterly opposed, but the indefinite anti- 

 quity of man is now a doctrine co-extensive with the general 

 intelligence and culture of the Christian world. 



With such a history at his command, the evolutionist of 

 thirty years ago need not have feared but that Orthodoxy 

 would eventually approve his doctrine if it should win the 

 approval of the scientific world. But it would have been a 

 very sanguine evolutionist that should have anticipated 

 what we have actually seen. For the opposition to the 

 new doctrine was at first very stiff and hard, not only from 

 the theologians but from the scientists. Doubtless the 

 scientific opposition was largely theological. It was atheis- 

 tic, the new doctrine ; it was materialistic. If it were true 

 there was neither a divine soul in the universe, nor an im- 

 mortal soul in man. Neither was there any adequate sanc- 

 tion for the moral law. Five or six years after the publi- 

 cation of " The Origin of Species," Darwin had no hope that 

 he should live to see the general approval of his thought 

 by scientific men. But he was happily disappointed. Not 

 only so, but he was buried in Westminster Abbey. That 

 meant that Orthodoxy had come round, as well as Science, 

 — not all of its inert and purblind bulk, but a fair propor- 

 tion of its leading spirits. Since then the accessions have 

 been much increased. A single volume embraces the favor- 

 able conclusions of a dozen different theologians of marked 

 ability. It must be confessed that in these examples, 



