EVOLUTION IN A THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 757 



sion of evolutionary doctrine. Evolution does not assert, it de- 

 nies that ape evolves into man. Evolution undertakes to show 

 why it is perfectly impossible that man should ever evolve into 

 ape. Prof. Shedd ought to know this, or, if he does not, he ought 

 to refrain from attacking what he does not understand. There is 

 a misprint in one of his pages which is highly significant. He 

 speaks of Darwin's work on "insectivorous animals"! A mis- 

 print, of course, yet how characteristically a sign that the author 

 was moving about in a world not realized when he wrote those 

 pages ! A scientist reading proof, with a spark of vitality left in 

 him, could no more have passed over that blunder than Prof. 

 Shedd could have passed over a careless expression which might 

 have implied that he believed the mercy of God was of equal rank 

 with his justice. In one case as in the other the thing would 

 have seemed so horrible a mistake that instinct without intellect 

 would have prevented its finally getting printed. 



The worst of it is that there is no reason whatever to suspect 

 Dr. Shedd's perfect honesty in all this. When he says that evo- 

 lution has failed to obtain general currency, he undoubtedly be- 

 lieves it. Evidence to the contrary he either has not read or has 

 not weighed. If he were to see what Romanes says in his latest 

 book, and says wholly in passing, wholly as a matter of course, 

 that there is not living a naturalist of note who is not an evolu- 

 tionist, he would probably be greatly surprised. If he were to 

 read the evidence gathered a few years ago by the " Independent," 

 and recently by the " Christian Union/' going to show that evo- 

 lution underlies the scientific teaching of all our leading colleges, 

 he would probably be greatly alarmed. I repeat that Prof. Shedd 

 is undoubtedly entirely honest in his ignorance ; and I say that 

 that is the worst of it, because it lends the influence of his high 

 character and great learning and unusual ability to the spread of 

 erroneous and disastrous beliefs. 



Narrowly considered, it is in reality a conspicuous and crown- 

 ing testimony to the place which evolution has taken in the 

 thought of the world, that Prof. Shedd should have, at last, taken 

 up the cudgels against it. It is like exerting influence back into 

 the seventeenth century. It is a doctrine of the nineteenth cent- 

 ury, making such a din, cutting up so much of the inherited 

 theology by the roots, that Turretin looks out uneasily from his 

 grave to see what the row is all about. Such a remark is in the 

 line of what the professor considers the highest compliment. He 

 prefers to be known as scholastic. A student who listened to a 

 year's lectures from him, a decade ago, reported that but two 

 books written in this century were referred to — and, as one of 

 these was Hodge's "Theology," that, as the student admitted, 

 reduced the number to one. The writer heard the late President 



