"
In Scotland the Duke of Argyll, head and front of the orthodox
party, dissenting in many respects from Darwin's full conclusions,
made concessions which badly shook the old position.
Curiously enough, from the Roman Catholic Church, bitter as some of
its writers had been, now came argument to prove that the Catholic
faith does not prevent any one from holding the Darwinian theory,
and especially a declaration from an authority eminent among
American Catholics--a declaration which has a very curious sound,
but which it would be ungracious to find fault with--that "the
doctrine of evolution is no more in opposition to the doctrine of the
Catholic Church than is the Copernican theory or that of Galileo."
Here and there, indeed, men of science like Dawson, Mivart, and
Wigand, in view of theological considerations, sought to make
conditions; but the current was too strong, and eminent
theologians in every country accepted natural selection as at least
a very important part in the mechanism of evolution.
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