certainly, that under these circumstances they would betray a little less uneasiness; and that the discovery that the doctrine is harmless might precede by a rather longer interval the admission that it is true. There would be less room for unkindly cavils. However, it is being discovered, in one way or other, that religion is really not interested in these discussions. We have lately seen, for example, in a very orthodox Romanist organ, that theology has nothing, or next to nothing, to say to Mr. Darwin's theories. It is permissible to believe either that man was made by a single act of the creative energy, or that a pair of apes was selected and improved gradually into humanity, as, if the comparison be admissible, human processes may gradually form the carrier-pigeon out of his wild congeners. We must, indeed, hold that the operation was miraculous; and as the tendency of scientific inquiry is to banish the miraculous, we may say that there is still a fundamental opposition between the teaching of the Church and Mr. Darwin. When we consider how easily the word "miraculous" may itself be rarefied until no particular meaning is left, we may doubt whether this opposition may not be removed; the verdict of science as to the mode in which the phenomena succeeded each other might be accepted, though there would be a difference of opinion as to the efficient cause of the change, and thus a kind of compromise might be effected between the rival forces.
Meanwhile, whatever the validity of this and similar artifices, it may be worth while to consider a little more closely what is the prospect before us. Let us suppose that Darwinism is triumphant at every point. Imagine it to be demonstrated that the long line of our genealogy can be traced back to the lowest organisms; suppose that our descent from the ape is conclusively proved, and the ape's descent from the tidal animal, and the tidal animal's descent from some ultimate monad, in whom all the vital functions are reduced to the merest rudiments. Or, if we will, let us suppose that a still further step has been taken, and the origin of life itself discovered, so that, by putting a certain mixture in an hermetically-sealed bottle, we can create our own ancestors over again. When we endeavor firmly to grasp that conception, we are, of course, sensible of a certain shock. We have a prejudice or two derived from the Zoological Gardens and elsewhere, which, as it were, causes our gorge to rise; but when we have fairly allowed the conception to sink into our minds, when we have brought our other theories into harmony with it, and have lost that uncomfortable sense of friction and distortion which is always produced by the intrusion of a new set of ideas, what is the final result of it all? What is it that we have lost, and what have we acquired in its place? It is surely worth while to face the question boldly, and look into the worst fears that can be conjured up by these terrible discoverers. Probably, after such an inspection, the thought that will occur to any reasonable man will be: What does it matter? What possible difference can it
