480 Darwinism and Religious Thought 
whither must be asked, and the particular thing measured as part of 
aseries. Thus measured it is not less truly important, but it may be 
important in a lower degree. On the other hand, and for exactly the 
same reason, nothing that is real is unimportant. The “failures” 
are not mere mistakes. We see them, in St Augustine’s words, as 
“gcholar’s faults which men praise in hope of fruit.” 
We cannot safely trace the origin of the evolutionistic method to 
the influence of natural science. The view is tenable that theology 
led the way. Probably this is a case of alternate and reciprocal debt. 
Quite certainly the evolutionist method in theology, in Christian 
history, and in the estimate of scripture, has received vast reinforce- 
ment from biology, in which evolution has been the ever present and 
ever victorious conception. 
(2) The second effect named is the new willingness of Christian 
thinkers to take definite account of religious experience. This is 
related to Darwin through the general pressure upon religious faith 
of scientific criticism. The great advance of our knowledge of 
organisms has been an important element in the general advance of 
science. It has acted, by the varied requirements of the theory of 
organisms, upon all other branches of natural inquiry, and it held 
for a long time that leading place in public attention which is now 
occupied by speculative physics. Consequently it contributed largely 
to our present estimation of science as the supreme judge in all 
matters of inquiry, to the supposed destruction of mystery and the 
disparagement of metaphysic which marked the last age, as well as 
to the just recommendation of scientific method in branches of 
learning where the direct acquisitions of natural science had no 
place. 
Besides this, the new application of the idea of law and mechanical 
regularity to the organic world seemed to rob faith of a kind of 
refuge. The romantics had, as Berthelot? shows, appealed to life to 
redress the judgments drawn from mechanism. Now, in Spencer, 
evolution gave us a vitalist mechanic or mechanical vitalism, and the 
appeal seemed cut off. We may return to this point later when we con- 
sider evolution ; at present I only endeavour to indicate that general 
pressure of scientific criticism which drove men of faith to seek the 
grounds of reassurance in a science of their own; in a method of 
experiment, of observation, of hypothesis checked by known facts. It 
is impossible for me to do more than glance across the threshold of 
this subject. But it is necessary to say that the method is in an 
elementary stage of revival. The imposing success that belongs to 
1 F, R, Tennant: “The Being of God in the light of Physical Science,” in Essays on 
some theological questions of the day. London, 1905. 
2 Evolutionisme et Platonisme, pp. 45, 46, 47. Paris, 1908. 
