CHAPTER V. 



SOCIALISM AND RELIGIOUS BELIEFS. 



None of the three contradictions between 

 socialism and Darwinism which Haeckel 

 formulated, and which so many authors have 

 repeated after him, withstands a frank and 

 more exact examination of the natural laws 

 attached to the name of Charles Darwin. 



I add that not only is Darwinism not 

 contrary to socialism, but that it forms one 

 of its fundamental scientific premises. As 

 Virchow justly remarked, socialism is nothing 

 else than the logical and vital outcome partly 

 of Darwinism and partly of Spencerian 

 evolution. 



Darwin's theory, whether one likes it or 

 not, in showing that man descends from 

 animals, has struck a great blow at the belief 

 in God as the creator of the universe and of 

 man by a special fiat. It is for that reason, 

 moreover, that the most implacable opposition, 

 and the only one which subsists against his 

 scientific induction was, and is, maintained 

 in the name of religion. 



It is true that Darwin did not declare him- 

 self an Atheist, and Mr. Spencer was not one ; 

 it is also true that, strictly speaking, Darwin's 

 theory and Spencer's can be reconciled with a 

 belief in God, because one can admit that 

 God has created matter and force, and that 



