who had it not, we might suppose that if at length we had discovered that it was in the light of truth untenable, that the accumulated testimony of man was worthless, and that his wisdom was but folly, yet at least the decencies of mourning would be vouchsafed to this irreparable loss. Instead of this, it is with a joy and exultation that might almost recall the frantic orgies of the Commune, that this, at least at first sight terrific and overwhelming calamity is accepted, and recorded as a gain. One recent, and in many ways, respected writer -a woman long wont to unship creed as sailors discharge excess of cargo in a storm, and passing at length into formal atheism—rejoices to find herself on the open, free, and "breezy common of the universe." Another, also woman, and dealing only with the workings and manifestations of God, finds * in the theory of a physical evolution as recently developed by Mr. Darwin, and received with extensive favour, both an emancipation from error and a novelty in kind. She rejoices to think that now at last Darwin "shows life as an harmonious whole, and makes the future stride possible by means of the past advance." Evolution, that is physical evolution, which alone is in view, may be true (like the solar theory), may be delightful and wonderful, in its right place; but are we really to understand that varieties of animals brought about through domestication, the wasting of organs (for instance, the tails of men) by disuse, that natural selection and the survival of the fittest, all in the physical order, exhibit to us the great arcanum of creation, the sum and centre of life, so that *I do not quote names, but I refer to a very recent article in one of our monthly periodicals. mind and spirit are dethroned from their old supremacy are no longer sovereign by right, but may find somewhere by charity a place assigned them, as appendages, perhaps only as excrescences, of the material creation? I contend that Evolution in its highest form has not been a thing heretofore unknown to history, to philosophy, or to theology. I contend that it was before the mind of Saint Paul when he taught that in the fulness of time God sent forth His Son, and of Eusebius, when he wrote the Preparation for the Gospel,' and of Augustine when he composed the City of God;' and, beautiful and splendid as are the lessons taught by natural objects, they are, for Christendom at least, indefinitely beneath the sublime unfolding of the great drama of human action, in which, through long ages, Greece was making ready a language and an intellectual type, and Rome a framework of order and an idea of law, such that in them were to be shaped and fashioned the destinies of a regenerated world. For those who believe that the old foundations are unshaken still, and that the fabric built upon them will look down for ages on the floating wreck of many a modern and boastful theory, it is difficult to see anything but infatuation in the destructive temperament which leads to the notion that to substitute a blind mechanism for the hand of God in the affairs of life is to enlarge the scope of remedial agency; that to dismiss the highest of all inspirations is to elevate the strain of human thought and life; and that each of us is to rejoice that our several units are to be disintegrated at death into "countless millions of organisms; for such, it seems, is the latest "revelation" delivered from the fragile tripod of a modern Delphi. Assuredly, either on the minds of those who believe, or else on the minds of those who after this fashion disbelieve, there lies some deep judicial darkness, a fog of darkness that may be felt. While disbelief in the eyes of faith is a sore calamity, this kind of disbelief, which renounces and repudiates with more than satisfaction what is brightest and best in the inheritance of man, is astounding, and might be deemed incredible. Nay, some will say, rather than accept the flimsy and hollow consolations which it makes bold to offer, might we not go back to solar adoration, or, with Goethe, to the hollows of Olympus? "Wenn die Funke sprüht, Wenn die Asche glüht, Eilen wir den alten Göttern zu." * NOTE. Hawarden Castle, Chester, MR. GLADSTONE presents his compliments to the Editor of the Nineteenth Century, and requests, with reference to an observation by Professor Huxley on Mr. Gladstone's neglect duly to consult the works of Professor Dana, whom he had cited, that the Editor will have the kindness to print in his next number the accompanying letter, which has this morning been sent to him from America. "REV. DR. SUTHERLAND, "My dear Sir,-I do not know that in my letter of yesterday, in which I referred you to the Bibliotheca Sacra,' I answered directly your question, and hence I add a word to say that I agree in all essential points with Mr. Gladstone, and believe that the first chapters of Genesis and Science are in accord. "Yours very truly, "JAMES D. DANA. "Newhaven, April 16, 1886." * 'Braut von Corinth,' II. PROEM TO GENESIS: A PLEA FOR A FAIR TRIAL.* 1885. Vous avez une manière si aimable d'annoncer les plus mauvaises nouvelles, qu'elles perdent par là de leurs désagrémens. So wrote, de haut en bas, the Duchess of York to Beau Brummell, sixty or seventy years back; † and so write I, de bas en haut, to the two very eminent champions who have in the Nineteenth Century of December entered appearances on behalf of Dr. Réville's 'Prolégomènes,' with a decisiveness of tone, at all events, which admits of no mistake: Professor Huxley and Professor Max Müller. My first duty is to acknowledge in both cases the abundant courtesy and indulgence with which I am personally treated. And my first thought is that, where even disagreement is made in a manner pleasant, it will be a duty to search and see if there be any points of agreement or approximation, which will be more pleasant still. This indulgence and courtesy deserves in the case of Professor Huxley a special warmth of acknowledgment, because, while thus more than liberal to the individual, he has for the class * Reprinted from the Nineteenth Century. of Reconcilers, in which he places me, an unconcealed and unmeasured scorn. These are they who impose upon man a burden of false science in the name of religion, who dictate as a Divine command "an implicit belief in the cosmogony of Genesis ; " and who "stir unwisdom and fanaticism to their depths." Judgments so severe should surely be supported by citation or other evidence, for which I look in vain. To some they might suggest the idea that Passion may sometimes unawares intrude even within the precincts of the temple of Science. But I admit that a great master of his art may well be provoked, when he finds his materials tumbled about by incapable hands, and may mistake for irreverence what is only want of skill. While acknowledging the great courtesy with which Professor Huxley treats his antagonist individually, and while simply listening to his denunciations of the Reconcilers as one listens to distant thunders, with a sort of sense that after all they will do no great harm, I must presume to animadvert with considerable freedom upon his method; upon the sweeping character of his advocacy; upon his perceptible exaggeration of points in controversy; upon his mode of dealing with authorities; and upon the curious fallacy of substitution by which he enables himself to found the widest proscriptions of the claim of the Book of Genesis to contain a Divine record upon a reasoned impeachment of its scientific accuracy in, as I shall show, a single particular. As to the first of these topics, nothing can be more equitable than Professor Huxley's intention to intervene as a "science proctor" in that part of the debate raised *Nineteenth Century, Dec. 1885, pp. 859, 860. |