FIFTY YEARS OF DARWINISM 17 



were carried back to a single element such as 

 hydrogen, the human mind would remain unsat- 

 isfied and would inquire whence the hydrogen 

 came, and that any and every underlying form 

 of matter must leave the inexorable question 

 " whence? " still unanswered. Therefore if in 

 the end the question must be given up, we may 

 as well, he argued, admit the mystery of creation 

 in the later stages as in the earlier. Thus he 

 arrived at the belief in a world formed instanta- 

 neously, ready-made and complete, with its fos- 

 sils, marks of denudation, and evidences of evolu- 

 tion — a going concern. Aubrey Moore, the 

 clergyman who more than any other man was 

 responsible for breaking down the antagonism 

 toward evolution then widely felt in the English 

 Church, replied very much as Kingsley had done, 

 that he was unwilling to believe that the Creator 

 had deliberately cheated the intellectual powers 

 He had made. I may add that, inasmuch as 

 science consists in the attempt to carry down 

 causation as far as possible, it is above all the 

 scientific side of the human intellect that is out- 

 raged, — ^no weaker term can be used, — ^by this 

 more modern development of the argxmaent of 

 Omphalos. 



THE PUBLICATION OF THE DARWIN- 

 WALLACE ESSAY 



In May, 1856, Darwin, urged by Lyell, began 

 to prepare for pubhcation. He had determined 



