What He Was 



7 



debates which followed Darwin's startling an- 

 nouncement of a new Creation. Yet throughout 

 the diary there is hardly a reference to this aspect 

 of Darwinism, about which, to judge by the 

 breadth of his reading, he must have known more 

 than most people. 



This reticence is all the more remarkable, seeing 

 that he had struck such a rich seam of evolutionary 

 material, and that he was actually pouring out the 

 thunder for Huxley's Darwinian guns. He makes 

 no secret of the fact that he was quite consciously 

 intent on forging that link in Darwin's chain which 

 would knit the Order of Reptiles with that of 

 Mammals. He even takes pride in the fact that, 

 in the curious mammal-like reptiles that he 

 discovered, he came so near to realizing this one 

 of his many high ambitions. 



It is curious, then, that he should show no signs 

 of having ever recoiled from the implications of 

 his discoveries, and that his faith was not at all 

 shaken by a bombardment that shocked and 

 stunned every devout theologian of his day. I 

 use the term theologian advisedly in reference to 

 Brown, for he was a great Bible scholar with a 

 magnificent library of books on Higher Criticism 

 and Exegesis. It is thus clear that, monkish 

 recluse as he was, it was not the bombs of Darwin- 

 ism that drove him into his dugout. The truth 



