44 THE EVOLUTIONARY THEORY 



can be appropriated by the million. It is said that 

 half the world does not know what the other half 

 thinks. It is certainly a fact that the ignorance of our 

 clergy as to the thinking of our industrial classes has 

 much to do with their inability to retain that class of 

 people within the Church. It is of vital importance 

 for your future success in this direction that you should 

 discover what the people at large are reading; for by 

 no other means can you gain adequate knowledge 

 of their thinking. You will, perhaps, be tempted to 

 underrate the influence of their reading because of its 

 evident shallowness. If so, you will have need to 

 remember that the mental training which enables you 

 to perceive its shallowness is wanting to the popular 

 mind, which is a prey to any form of error, however 

 shallow, when it is insistently propagated by those who 

 claim to be setting forth the latest results of scientific 

 investigation and higher thinking, and who write in 

 terms easily understood by untrained readers. 



To return to our present subject, the theory of evo- 

 lution with which we are concerned in these lectures 

 has no necessary connection with monism, whether 

 materialistic or spiritualistic. It is exclusively bio- 

 logical, and is accepted by theists and anti-theists 

 alike, being regarded throughout the scientific world 

 as the best available working hypothesis of the origin 

 of species. The aspect of this theory which will 

 demand our especial attention is its bearing upon the 

 Christian doctrine concerning man's primitive state 

 and fall. 



