The Making of Species 
extreme caution, the onslaught can have but one 
result—the attacker will be repulsed with heavy 
loss, and the onlookers will have a higher opinion 
of his valour than of his common sense. 
The theologians were in the unfortunate posi- 
tion of warriors who do not know what it is 
against which they are fighting ; they confounded 
natural selection with evolution, and directed the 
main force of their attack against the latter, 
under the impression that they were fighting 
the Darwinian theory. 
It was the misfortune of those theologians that 
it is possible to prove that evolution, or, at any 
rate, some evolution has occurred; they thus 
kicked against the pricks with disastrous results 
to themselves. When this attack had been 
repulsed men believed that the theory of natural 
selection had been demonstrated, that it was 
as much a law of nature as that of gravitation. 
What had really happened was that the fact of 
evolution had been proved, and the theory of 
natural selection obtained the credit. Men 
thought that Darwinism was evolution. Had 
the theologians admitted evolution but denied 
the ability of natural selection to explain it, the 
Darwinian theory, in all probability, would not 
have gained the ascendency which it now enjoys. 
To us who are able to look back dispassionately 
upon the biological warfare of the last century, 
Darwin's opponents—or the majority of them— 
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