The Churches and Modern Thought An inquiry into the...

With but very few exceptions, every biological student admits our animal origin. The ideas of most people, however, on this subject are hazy in the extreme, and no wonder, when the study of Evolution has never been included in their school curriculum. Men (and in very rare cases women) pick up a few crumbs of knowledge concerning the scientific theory of their origin, and then, from want of leisure or from religious motives, or from various causes, they drop the subject. Often they are put off by the dry details of the evidence and the technical phrases before they have obtained a real grip of the subject. They do not even know some of the more simple and obvious proofs which alone would have sufficed to convince them. One finds that men’s views concerning Evolution are coloured by the opinion prevailing at the time when they themselves were once faintly interested in the subject; and thus there is, at present, an inertia of ignorance, due to the misconceptions and prejudices of older generations. The opinions of our elders, being formed on a riper experience, very properly enlist our respect; but, unfortunately, in this instance they are based upon false premises, and so lead us astray. People who remember when Darwin first propounded his theory, and the violent, not to say virulent, opposition with which it was received by the Church, only too often remain in blissful ignorance of all that has since transpired. It is quite enough for them that they are erect, tailless, speaking, reflecting bipeds.

With attributes such as these, they fondly imagine that they are separated from the beast by a gulf that neither Evolution nor any other theory could possibly bridge. Whatever the reasons may be—and there are many—the vast majority of Christians not only remain woefully ignorant of Evolution, but have no desire to learn anything more about it. They know it is opposed to Bible teaching. They prefer, as it has been well said, to consider themselves fallen angels rather than elevated apes.

We are not, however, concerned here with likes and dislikes, but only with the truth as far as our reason allows us to discover it. Moreover, if it be objected that we can take no pride in an animal ancestry, surely we may say the same of our savage ancestry. “He who has seen a savage in his native land will not feel much shame if forced to acknowledge that the blood of some more humble creature flows in his veins. For my own part, I would as soon be descended from that heroic little monkey, who braved his dreaded enemy in order to save the life of his keeper; or from that old baboon, who, descending from the mountains, carried away in triumph his young comrade from a crowd of astonished dogs, as from a savage who delights to torture his enemies, offers up bloody sacrifices, practises infanticide without remorse, treats his wives like slaves, knows no decency, and is haunted by the grossest superstitions.”4 “We must acknowledge, as it seems to me, that man, with all his noble qualities, with sympathy which feels for the most debased, with benevolence which extends not only to other men, but to the humblest living creature, with his god-like intellect, which has penetrated into the movement and constitution of the solar system—with all these exalted powers—man still bears in his bodily frame the indelible stamp of his lowly origin.”5