Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 29.djvu/596

578 we could perhaps scarcely name an American whom the common voice would pronounce better fitted to grapple with every phase of the doctrine of evolution in a logical and scholarly manner. We must confess, however, to a certain amount of disappointment with both the matter and the manner of the learned ex-president's "Lecture on Evolution," delivered before the Nineteenth Century Club, on the 25th of May last, and now reprinted for general circulation in pamphlet form. Our objections to the matter will appear as we proceed: our objection to the manner is that the learned ex-president has really not been so careful as he should have been—as one would suppose he would, almost by instinct, be—to clothe his thoughts in correct literary, or, let us say at once, grammatical form. One does not like to discuss questions of grammar in connection with a discussion of evolution; but, really, there is ground for complaint when a writer of the high competence of Dr. Porter embarrasses and irritates the reader of his lecture by simple inattention to the rules of composition.

The reader is not left long in doubt as to Dr. Porter's point of view. He says, in effect, at the outset, that the question of evolution might be left for scientists and philosophers to settle between them were it not for the fact that, as frequently presented, it involves consequences to Christian theism and natural ethics: this fact renders the intervention of the theologian necessary. Here we see the issue 'plainly formulated between dogma on the one hand and the free conclusions of the human intellect on the other. The theologian must intervene—why? What does he know of the matter in hand that "scientists and philosophers" may not equally know? Why should the interests of truth be dearer to him than to them? It will scarcely be pretended that the special knowledge of doctrinal systems in their succession and relation, or of the textual criticism of the Scriptures, which a professed theological student might be supposed to possess, would be of any great service in a discussion of the Darwinian theory or of the larger aspects of biological evolution. Yet, unless the theologian intervenes by virtue either of such special knowledge or of some special authority of a sacerdotal kind with which he claims to be invested, we fail to see how he can be said to intervene as a theologian at all. If he simply joins in the discussion on general grounds, contributing his quota of information or of logical discrimination, as any one else might do, why, then, he merely sits down with the "scientists and philosophers"; and happy is he if he can hold his own in such good company. Now, the truth is, that the learned doctor's intervention has been precisely of this kind. We fail to discover that he has uttered a single word in his character as a theologian, or done the least thing to show that evolution can not be safely and thoroughly discussed on grounds of science and philosophy. The only significant thing about his intervention is the animus. He thought he could deal with the matter as a theologian and he wished to do so. His