If "Evolutionists" complain of the treatment
they have received at the hands of "Theologians," they will at least, in
fairness, admit that there has been some misconception, some error on
both sides. What we maintain is, that evolution (i.e., here, as always,
unlimited, uncontrolled evolution) still fails to account for many facts
in nature; that we are still far from holding anything like a complete
scheme in our hands; there may be _limits_ to the wide circle of
progressive changes, to the results of development, of which we are
ignorant; and there is, above all, in that most important of all
questions--the descent of man--an absolute want of proof of animal
_descent_ (i.e., in any sense which includes the "soul" or spiritual
faculties of man). Hence that evolution in no way clashes with an
intelligent Christian belief. In saying this, I would carefully avoid
undervaluing the services which the evolution theory has rendered, and
is rendering, to science. Even in its first form as a mere hypothesis,
it was an eminently suggestive one; there was from the first quite truth
enough in it to make it fruitful, and many working hypotheses have been
immensely useful in science, which have in the end been very largely
modified. Before Darwin's wonderfully accurate mind and marvellous skill
in collecting and making use of facts, turned the current of natural
science into this new channel, men seemed to be without an aim for their
naturalist's work.
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