1883.] 
Modem Literature . 
641 
well to hesitate and enquire. As it is she has merely helped 
to strengthen the odium which in many quarters is still 
entertained against Evolutionism. 
In another passage we read, as touching the same Brian 
Wendover, “ He had just that thin smattering of modern 
science which enables shallow youth to make a merit of dis- 
belief in all things beyond the limit of mathematical demon- 
stration. He had skimmed Darwin, and spoke lightly of 
mankind as the latest development of time and matter, and 
no higher a being, from a spiritual point of view, than the 
first worm that wriggled in its primeval slime. He had 
dipped into Herbert Spencer, and talked largely of God as 
the Unknowable.” Here, again, it may well be asked 
whether the denial of the traditional origin of man as a 
being distinct, toto ccelo, from the rest of the animal world, 
legitimates the conclusion that he is, from a spiritual point 
of view, no higher than the first worm ? All believers in 
Evolution maintain that man has been developed spiritually 
as well as physically. It is of course open to Miss Braddon 
to pourtray a character, like Brian, holding the views here 
implied ; but she should have been very careful to show that 
the dreams and the talk of a fast young man, haunted with 
delirium tremens , are no natural consequences of a study of 
the writings of Darwin and Spencer. 
We do not deny that in the natural sciences, as elsewhere, 
superficial knowledge is a dangerous thing, especially when 
over-rated by its possessors. To show the wrong that Miss 
Braddon has here done to modern science we need only ask 
what impression will be left by a perusal of the passages 
quoted ? Let the book be read by a clergyman, a school- 
master, or a parent unacquainted with Darwin’s works, will 
he not shake his head and pronounce them most dangerous 
and most improper to be put into the hands of young 
people ? 
We do, however, find Darwin and his compeers presented 
in a somewhat different light. Concerning a certain most 
disagreeable young lady, and her plausible father, a duly 
qualified charlatan, we read “ You remember with what 
a firm hand he managed her in days gone by. Well, after 
she took to Huxley and Darwin, and the rest of them, that 
was all over. She was always tripping him up with some 
little shred of scientific knowledge, fresh from Tyndall ; 
always attacking his old-fashioned notions with some new 
light.” Surely if modern research can be presented to the 
reader merely as furnishing a weak-minded idler with 
excuses for his vapid immorality, and as enabling ci-devant 
