Williams : Darwin and Darwinism. 



41 



extent the ideal set up by Bacon. In process of time it came to be 

 admitted, either tacitly or in express terms, that his hypothesis, after 

 all, did not necessarily carry with it all the consequences it was at first 

 supposed to involve ; and a common attitude towards it among those 

 who were long its active opponents may be described as that of 

 tolerant recognition or watchful neutrality. It is an established fact 

 that, during the two-and-twenty years it has been before the world, 

 the doctrine of the origin of species by means of natural selection has 

 made a progress which, considering its novelty and its startling 

 implication, is absolutely without a parallel. For it need hardly be 

 said that the origin of species in this way raises a presumption in 

 favour of the more comprehensive doctrine of evolution, with which 

 also the name of Darwin, is inseparably bound np. Thus, while for 

 fame and distinction he cared literally nothing ; while the one object 

 he sought throughout life to attain was the truth ; while for this he 

 laboured with a single-mindedness, a freedom from the bondage of pet 

 theories and preconceived ideas, that are almost unexampled — he had, 

 during his lifetime, what to him was undoubtedly the highest reward 

 that could be bestowed upon him, in the ever-increasing acceptance of 

 the theory he was the first to formulate by those best competent to 

 form a judgment. That it is a final or complete revelation, he himself 

 would have been the last to assert ; but he lived to see it accepted as 

 an immense step in advance on a path in which for many centuries no 

 progress had been achieved. 



Antagonism to it came from another quarter ; and here also judg- 

 ment has to be tempered with respect for the best or deepest opinions 

 or convictions of the human heart. This class of critics, without 

 pretending to much scientific knowledge, considered the Darwinian 

 theory to be in direct opposition to the teaching of the Bible ; so it 

 was fiercely assailed by the clergy of all churches, and for a long time 

 Darwinism was regarded as synonymous with infidelity. The idea 

 that vegetable, animal, and human life had been evolved from a few 

 primordial forms, or perhaps from one, by a process of law, instead of 

 each having been called into being by separate and successive acts of 

 creation, was regarded as antagonistia to the principles of revealed 

 religion, and the religious commotion was as loud and angry as was 

 the scientific wrangle, and continued much longer. But, now, the 

 theologians have practically come round to admitting that Darwinism 

 is a tenable theory — a theory quite consistent with the divine origin 

 and government of the world. So complete is the change which has 

 taken place in the attitude of the Church towards it, that a religious 



