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 recognise 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 covering Darwin and his followers
with contempt; Christlieb, in his address before the Evangelical
Alliance at New York in 1873, simply took the view that the
tendencies of the Darwinian theory were "toward infidelity," but
declined to make any serious battle on biblical grounds; the
Jesuit, Father Pesch, in Holland, drew up in Latin, after the old
scholastic manner, a sort of general indictment of evolution, of
which one may say that it was interesting--as interesting as the
display of a troop in chain armour and with cross-bows on a
nineteenth-century battlefield.
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