1880. | The Critics of Evolution. 325 
ral consequence of the theory of gravitation and of the subse- 
quent progress of physical and astronomical discovery, has been 
denounced as atheistical even down to our day. It has now out- 
lived anathema,” and is no longer rejected even by theologians. 
Dr. Asa Gray acknowledges that Darwin in his style is loose, 
and that he might have been more guarded had he chosen to be 
so. Dr. Gray, however, acquits him of all atheistic intent, and 
remarks that his view may be made clear to the theological mind 
by likening it to that of the “believer in the general but not in 
particular Providence,” a view which prevails among mankind.’ 
There is no need, says Gray, “ to cull passages from his works to 
support this interpretation, while the author—the most candid of 
men—retains throughout all the editions of the “ Origin of Spe- 
cies,” the two mottoes from Dr. Whewell and Bishop Butler, 
which, by implication, entirely acquit him of atheism. 
It may be well to quote the passage from Dr. Whewell, the able 
author of “A History of the Inductive Sciences ;” that from 
Butler has already been adduced: “ But with regard to the mate- 
rial world, we can at least go so far as this—we can perceive that 
events are brought about not by insulated interpositions of Divine 
power exerted in each particular case, but by the establishment of 
general laws.” (Whewell’s Bridgewater Treatise.) 
Another extract from Dr. Gray we will present the reader. 
In physical and physiological treatises, the most religious men do 
not think it necessary to postulate the First Cause, nor are they 
misjudged by the omission. But surely Darwin does acknowledge 
a Creator, not only by implication but most explicitly where one 
would most naturally look for it, namely—at the close of the vol- 
ume in question. “ Authors of the highest eminence seem to be 
fully satisfied with the view that each species has been indepen- 
dently created. To my mind it accords better with what we 
know of the Zaws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the pro- 
duction and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the 
world, should have been due to secondary causes, like those 
determining the birth and death of the individual” * * * 
“there is grandeur in the view of life, with its several powers, 
having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms, or 
into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on accord- 
ing to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless 
1 Darwiniana, p. 258. 
