Darwin made easy / by Edward B. Aveling.

  • Edward Aveling
Date:
1893
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Darwin made easy / by Edward B. Aveling. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    So embittered and unfair are many of the opponents of Darwin in the early time, that his own care is actually used as an argument against him. The Quarterly Review of July, 1860, complains quite pathetically of his want of dogmatism, and appears to think that because Darwin only says, “ I think 55 that species are the result of natural causes, he is less credible than a clergyman who says, “ I know 55 that the writer of Genesis knew accurately the mind of the infallible god; and a Rev. F. O. Morris, perhaps the most amusing, and certainly the most ignorant assail- ant of Darwinism, devotes two or three pages of his “ All the Articles of the Darwinian Faith ” to a list of phrases snch as—“ I believe,” “ I think,” “ It is possible,” taken from the “ Origin of Species.” Some of the attacks are anonymous, and the writers of these must now congratulate themselves on their superior acuteness as compared with the want of wisdom on the part of others who were foolish enough to put their names to their lucubrations. I must rescue one of these anony- mous beings from oblivion. He is too funny to be left alone, and his words are an apt motto for Christian Evidence persons, who without any scientific qualification attempt to deal with this subject. They should be written on the forehead of every one of these, and of every priest who as a priest, and not as a scientific man, presumes to give an opinion on Darwinism. “ It certainly has seemed to me the height of presump- tion for one, without scientific or literary acquirements, to attempt to refute the theory of so distinguished and universally admired an author as Mr. Darwin—a theory which has met with so much support from clever and en- lightened men, and which men, far cleverer and more experienced than myself, though disapproving and dis- agreeing with it, have not attempted to refute.” Never- theless our tyro, as he calls himself, moans over Darwin's misfortune in espousing an “ untenable theory,” and placidly reminds the great philosopher that “ God has hidden many things from the wise and prudent, and has revealed them unto babes.” A few scientific men of repute opposed the teaching of Darwin at first. A yet smaller number still oppose. As .instances of permanent opposition on the part of men of
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