WHAT IS DARWINISM f 281 



Dr. Winchell, chancellor of the new university at 

 Syracuse, in his volume just issued upon the " Doc- 

 trine of Evolution," adopts it in the abstract as 

 " clearly as the law of universal intelligence under 

 which complex results are brought into existence" 

 (whatever that may mean), accepts it practically for 

 the inorganic world as a geologist should, hesitates as 

 to the organic world, and sums up the arguments for 

 the origin of species by diversification unfavorably 

 for the Darwinians, regarding it mainly from the 

 geological side. As some of our zoologists and palae- 

 ontologists may have somewhat to say upon this matter, 

 we leave it for their consideration. We are tempted 

 to develop a point which Dr. Winchell incidentally 

 refers to viz., how very modern the idea of the inde- 

 pendent creation and fixity of species is, and how well 

 the old divines got on without it. Dr. Winchell re- 

 minds us that St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas 

 were model evolutionists ; and, where authority is de- 

 ferred to, this should count for something. 



Mr. Kingsley's eloquent and suggestive "West- 

 minster Sermons," in which he touches here and 

 there upon many of the topics which evolution brings 

 up, has incorporated into the preface a paper which 

 he read in 1871 to a meeting of London clergy at 

 Sion College, upon certain problems of natural theol- 

 ogy as affected by modern theories in science. We 

 may hereafter have occasion to refer to this volume. 

 Meanwhile, perhaps we may usefully conclude this 

 article with two or three short extracts from it : 



" The God who satisfies our conscience ought more or less 

 to satisfy our reason also. To teach that was Butler's mission ; 



