Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 45.djvu/165

Rh But it was noted that this second series of attacks, on the Descent of Man, differed in one remarkable respect—so far as England was concerned—from, those which had been made over ten years before on the Origin of Species. While everything was done to discredit Darwin, to pour contempt over him, and even, of all things in the world, to make him—the gentlest of mankind, only occupied with the scientific side of the problem—"a persecutor of Christianity," while his followers were represented more and more as charlatans or dupes, there began to be in the most influential quarters careful avoidance of the old argument that evolution—even by natural selection—contradicts Scripture. It began to be felt that this was dangerous ground. The defection of Lyell had, perhaps, more than anything else, started the question among theologians who had preserved some equanimity, "What if, after all, the Darwinian theory should prove to be true?" Recollections of the position in which the Roman Church found itself after the establishment of the doctrines of Copernicus and Galileo naturally came into the minds of the more thoughtful. In Germany this consideration does not seem to have occurred at quite so early a day. One eminent Lutheran clergyman at Magdeburg called on his hearers to choose between Darwin and religion; Delitszch, in his new commentary on Genesis, attempted to bring science back to recognize human sin as an important factor in creation; Prof. Heinrich Ewald, while carefully avoiding any sharp conflict between the scriptural doctrine and evolution, comforted himself by pouring contempt over Darwin and his followers; Christlieb, in his address before the Evangelical Alliance at New York, 1873, simply took the view that the