came expedient to devote a special section for the exclusive consideration of its doctrines. At the same time it cannot be denied, that the negative side of the evolution problem, which had so long found a refuge among religious bodies under the false assumption that their views had the imprimatur of the Biblical narrative of creation, had still its advocates, for it seems that no amount of evidence can eradicate the rooted objections of some persons to the doctrine of evolution."
The revolution thus effected in current thought with regard to the origin of man, though mainly due to the publication of the works of the eminent writers above mentioned, derived a contributory element from the science of geology. Early in last century geologists were rather inclined to the opinion that the world had passed through a series of destructive cataclysms, each of which had been succeeded by an entirely new flora and fauna. These successive world-revolutions were supposed to be due to the direct interposition of an all-ruling Providence; and hence, for a time, these geological speculations rather strengthened the so-called orthodox opinion, that the present order of things was the final stage of the imaginary dramas of special creations, in which the creation of Man stood forth as the last and crowning achievement. But a fuller acquaintance with fossil remains soon rendered the theory of cataclysms untenable. In other words, the
