1892 CONTROVERTED QUESTIONS 317 



lamented more than himself; and as in the letter to M. de 

 Varigny, of November 25, 1891, so here in the prologue 

 he apologises for the fact. 



This prologue, — of which he writes to a friend, " It cost 

 me more time and pains than any equal number of pages 

 I have ever written," — was designed to indicate the main 

 question, various aspects of which are dealt with by these 

 seemingly disconnected essays. 



The historical evolution of humanity (he writes), which is 

 generally, and I venture to think not unreasonably, regarded as 

 progress, has been, and is being, accompanied by a co-ordinate 

 elimination of the supernatural from its originally large occu- 

 pation of men's thought. The question — How far is this process 

 to go? is, in my apprehension, the controverted question of our 

 time. 



This movement, marked by the claim for the freedom of 

 private judgment, which first came to its fulness in the 

 Renascence, is here sketched out, rising or sinking by turns 

 under the pressure of social and political vicissitudes, from 

 Wiclif's earliest proposal to reduce the Supernaturalism of 

 Christianity within the limits sanctioned by the Scriptures, 

 down to the manifesto in the previous year of the thirty- 

 eight Anglican divines in defence of biblical infallibility, 

 which practically ends in an appeal to the very principle 

 they reject. 



But he does not content himself with pointing out the 

 destructive effects of criticism upon the evidence in favour 

 of a " supernature " — " The present incarnation of the spirit 

 of the Renascence," he writes, " differs from its predecessor 

 in the eighteenth century, in that it builds up, as well as 

 pulls down. That of which it has laid the foundation, of 

 which it is already raising the superstructure, is the doctrine 

 of evolution," a doctrine that " is no speculation, but a gen- 

 eralisation of certain facts, which may be observed by any 

 one who will take the necessary trouble." And in a short 

 dozen pages he sketches out that common body of estab- 

 lished truths " to which it is his confident belief that ' all 

 future philosophical and theological speculations will have 

 to accommodate themselves.' " 



