82 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 



the rock of the Christian theory of life, was the 

 struggle between the Copernican and the Ptolemaic 

 systems. The Ptolemaic system had rested for 

 centuries so peaceably beside the rock of Christianity, 

 that men believed them to be inseparably connected, 

 that the rock must fall if the earth were to begin 

 to revolve round the sun, and ceased to stand still. 

 But the rock still stood firm when the old wave 

 had to give way, and the new Copernican system, 

 as the more powerful, expelled the Ptolemaic, and 

 the earth really began to revolve round the sun. 

 The minds of the faithful ceased to fear, for they 

 saw that there was no reason for alarm ; the rock 

 stood far too firm to be shaken by any transient 

 surging of the waves. 



Another three hundred years passed, and a fresh 

 storm threatened the ancient rock. Once more 

 had a wave rested in long-continued peace at the 

 foot of the rock, and once more had those dwelling 

 on it come to regard the wave as essential to their 

 very existence, so essential that, should it give 

 place to another and a more powerful wave, the 

 downfall of the rock must necessarily follow. And 

 the new wave came, and it will probably be vic- 

 torious in the conflict now raging between it and 

 the old. Will the rock fall, if the old wave is ex- 

 pelled ? 



This picture, too, is easily understood. 



I am referring to the theory of evolution as 

 opposed to that of permanence, according to which 



