86 WHAT IS DARWINISM? 



the second volume of his work on Man, to the 

 consideration of Darwinism. He expresses his 

 opinion of it, after high commendation, in the 

 following terms. He says that it cannot he 

 doubted that Darwin's " theory turns the Cre- 

 ator — and his occasional intervention in the 

 revolutions of the earth and in the produc- 

 tion of species — without any hesitation out of 

 doors, inasmuch as it does not leave the small- 

 est room for the agency of such a Being. The 

 first living germ being granted, out of it the 

 creation develops itself progressively by natu- 

 ral selection, through all the geological periods 

 of our planets, by the simple law of descent — 

 no new species arises by creation and none 

 perishes by divine annihilation — the natural 

 course of things, the process of evolution of all 

 organisms and of the earth itself, is of itself 

 sufficient for the production of all we see. 

 Thus Man is not a special creation, produced 

 in a different way, and distinct from other ani- 

 mals, endowed with an individual soul and 

 animated by the breath of God ; on the con- 

 trary, Man is only the highest product of the 

 progressive evolution of animal life springing 

 from the group of apes next below him." l 



1 Vorlesungen iiber den Menschen, seine Stellung in der Sclwep- 



