322 The Critics of Evolution. [ May, 
deed the noblest product of a century of scientific thought; the 
top-stone of the intellectual building that man has been erect- 
ing. 
Scientists falsely assumed to be Atheists—Though it is not a part 
of the mission of science to explain or even to discuss the super- 
natural, philosophers readily admit, that all seal origination is 
supernatural. The question is whether they have yet gone back 
to the origin, and can assert indubitably, that the present forms of 
plants and animals are those originally created by miraculous ex- 
ercise of power. Studying facts and phenomena in reference to 
proximate causes, or endeavoring to trace back the series of causes 
and effects as far as possible, is a process strictly scientific and 
perfectly legitimate. It is the process of all science. Did not 
Newton, by this method, rise from the observation on the fall of 
an apple, to the far-reaching discovery of the laws of gravitation ? 
Let it be observed also as in the highest degree instructive in this 
connection, that Newton, the pious Sir Isaac, the demonstrator of 
the truth of prophecy, a sincere and humble believer in the 
leading doctrines of our religion,—was because of his demonstra- 
tion of the laws by which the universe is sustained, pronounced 
by the ignorant and unwise ultra-pious of his day, an atheist? 
They hastily assumed that, because the philosopher had traced 
the working of the Divine hand, had demonstrated the method 
by which He labors, that God had been shut out of the creation. 
Here is something more foolish than any philosophy, and paralleled 
only by the reasoning of our champion Anti-Evolutionists. 
The path pursued by Newton is that followed by Darwin, who 
has adhered to the scientific spirit, deeming the task of science 
to be, as expressed by Agassiz, “to investigate what has been 
done, to inquire if possible how it has been done, rather than to 
ask what is possible for the Deity, since we can know that only 
by what actually exists.” Though Darwin has not deemed it his 
duty to become an exponent of natural theology, he has emphat- 
1 The list of those who have been denounced as infidels and atheists, include almost 
all great men of science—generals, scholars, reba philanthropists. The 
deepest Christian life, the holiest Christian character, have not availed to shield the 
combatants. Christians like Sir Isaac Newton and Paai and John Locke and John 
Milton, and even Howard and Fenelon, have had these weapons hurled at them. 
“ The Warfare of Science,” by Andrew D. White, LL.D., President of Cornell Uni- 
versity. See also lists of persons charged with infidelity and atheism in “ Le Diction- 
naire des Athées.” Paris, An. VIII. (1799) 
