Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 37.djvu/742

722 the earth examples of all the main stages in the development of human civilization; that from the period when man appears little above the brutes, and with little if any religion in any accepted sense of the word, these examples can be arranged in an ascending series leading to the highest planes which humanity has reached; that philosophic observers may among these examples study existing beliefs, usages, and institutions back through earlier and earlier forms until, as a rule, the whole evolution can be easily divined if not fully seen. Moreover, the basis of the whole structure became more and more clear; the declaration that "the lines of intelligence have always been what they are, and have always operated as they do now—that man has progressed from the simple to the complex, from the particular to the general."

As this evidence from Ethnology became more and more strong, its significance to Theology aroused attention, and naturally most determined efforts were made to break its force. On the Continent the two great champions of the Church in this field were De Maist're and De Bonald; but the two attempts which may be especially recalled as the most influential among Englishspeaking peoples were those of Whately, Archbishop of Dublin, and the Duke of Argyll.

First in the combat against these new deductions of science was Whately. He was a strong man, caring little for conventionalities, whose breadth of thought and liberality in practice deserved all honor; but these very qualities drew upon him the distrust of his orthodox brethren, and while his writings were powerful in the first half of the present century to break down many bulwarks of unreason, he seems to have been constantly in fear of losing touch with the Church, and therefore to have promptly attacked some scientific reasonings, which, had he been a layman, not holding a brief for the Church, he would probably have studied with more care and less prejudice. He was not slow to see the deeper significance of Archæology and Ethnology in their relations to the theological conception of "the fall," and he set the battle in array against them.

His contention was, to use his own words, that "no community ever did or ever can emerge unassisted by external helps from a state of utter barbarism into anything that can be called civilization"; and that, in short, all imperfectly civilized, barbarous, and savage races are but fallen descendants of races more fully civilized. This view was urged with his usual ingenuity and vigor; but the facts proved too strong for him: they made it clear, first, that many races were without simple possessions, instruments, and arts which never, probably, could have been lost if once acquired—as, for example, pottery, the bow for shooting, various domesticated animals, spinning, the simplest principles of agriculture,