98 



PIONEERS OF EVOLUTION. 



France and Britain, carried the war into the camp 

 of the enemy, and changed its tactics from aggressive 

 to defensive. But none the less is it true that the 

 ■' superstitious delusions " against which he planted 

 his logical artillery were killed neither by argument 

 nor by evidence. Delusion and error do not perish 

 by controversial warfare. They perish under the 

 slow and silent operation of changes to which they 

 are unable to adapt themselves. The atmosphere is 

 altered: the organism can neither respond nor re- 

 spire; therefore, it dies. Thus, save where lurks the 

 ignorance which is its breath of life, has wholly per- 

 ished belief in witchcraft; thus, too, is slowly perish- 

 ing belief in miracles, and, with this, belief in the 

 miraculous events, the incarnation, resurrection, and 

 ascension of Jesus, on which the fundamental tenets 

 of Christianity are based, and in which lies so largely 

 the secret of its long hostility to knowledge. 



