EVOLUTION IN A THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 755 



sight of facts. His books furnish, the best examples of careful 

 induction the world has seen, and it is, of course, for that reason 

 that they have had such immense influence, and that he gave an 

 indestructible life to that cautious working theory of evolution 

 which is to-day the presupposition of all the best work in natural 

 science. 



But Prof. Shedd leaves all this out of the account, and knows 

 of no evolution which does not mean the change of a mineral into 

 a vegetable, and of a vegetable into an animal. " Evolution/' he 

 says, " is not a mere change of form but of matter." It is true he 

 recurs frequently to Darwin and his specific views, but you can 

 never be sure that he will not fly off to his favorite Haeckel even 

 when apparently farthest from him. This process of mixing up 

 distinct things makes it easy for a disputant, when persecuted in 

 one city, to flee into another, but does not much help one who is 

 after the facts. 



This confusion can be forgiven, however, for the sake of the 

 doctor's great lucidity when he comes to state the objections to 

 evolution. Here you always know what he means. We can not 

 follow him all through his enumeration of the difficulties which 

 the theory has to encounter, but will allude to those which are the 

 most novel. The first gun he fires off is formidable enough : " The 

 first objection to the theory of pseudo-evolution is that it is con- 

 tradicted by the whole course of scientific observation and experi- 

 ment. It is a theory in the face of facts." That is certainly a 

 serious objection, and one wonders that it had never occurred to 

 any of the scientists who have looked into this matter. It is but 

 another instance of the value of a new point of view. In fact, the 

 thing appears to be mostly intuitive with Prof. Shedd (and, of 

 course, for that reason all the more certain ; he stands by the in- 

 tuitive philosophy), for he advances slight evidence for the state- 

 ment we have quoted ; the gist of what he says being that he 

 never heard of a pigeon being developed out of a cabbage or a 

 piece of quartz, nor of its developing, on the other hand, into a 

 horse. It would be a brazen theory that could hold up its head 

 after such an objection, but the professor seems to fear that evo- 

 lution needs to be slain at least twice, and so he fires a second 

 fatal shot : " This objection is proved to be true by the failure of 

 the theory to obtain general currency." He means Darwinism 

 now, for all the testimony which he cites bears on that theory. 

 Agassiz is his main tower of strength. The views of a man who 

 died sixteen years ago may be thought to have little to do with 

 what is now " general currency," but that is nothing beside the 

 witness of Haeckel himself. Out of its own mouth Dr. Shedd will 

 judge evolution. He cites a passage from " Creation " in which 

 the German rails at the French for not accepting Darwinism, and 



