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7 affected Rousseau's "Nouvelle Héloïse." And that influence endured. Balzac, George Sand and Alfred de Musset did homage to a man whose life was singularly contrasted with that of any of the three admirers. Nor would it be wholly fanciful to suggest that, in the twentieth century, "Marie-Claire" is in the direct line of descent from "Pamela." In Germany, Goethe himself studied Richardson's art and the secret of his power over German hearts, and though " Werther " is inspired by Rousseau, it is from Richardson that the inspiration was indirectly derived. writers have left a literary offspring which departed so widely from the original type. Luxuriating in sentiment, Richardson played with fire. Experience shows that sentiments cannot always be curbed by virtue," or regulated by moral maxims, when the sanctions of both restrictions are doubted or denied. Richardson's propriety would have been outraged if Julie and Lotte had taken their places by the side of Pamela and Clarissa at the table of his surburban garden at North End. He would have been still more horrified by the swarm of wild doctrines, subversive of much that he cherished, which might, by the application of sentiment to theory, have traced to him their parentage.

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EVOLUTION AND A NEW THEOLOGY

I. Evolution in the Light of Modern Knowledge:
Blackie & Son. 1925.

2. Concerning Evolution. By J. ARTHUR THOMSON.
University Press. London: Milford.

1925.

a collective work.

New Haven: Yale

3. Evolution, Heredity and Variation. By D. WARD CUTLER. Christophers.

1925.

THER

HERE is a saying of Huxley that in every path of his scientific investigations, at some stage or other in his career, he came across a barrier labelled "No thoroughfare. Moses." The authority of the established religion blocked the way. To the same effect were Temple's words to Tait, then Bishop of London, at the height of the clamour against the writers in "Essays and Reviews":"If the conclusions are prescribed, the study is precluded." We have travelled far since then; but even to-day we are not immune from the poison of the "reaction more perilous than scepticism" which Westcott commented on in a letter to Lightfoot in 1860-the reaction which new truths about ourselves and the world we live in always produce among those whose religion has been associated with a scheme with which the new truth seems to conflict. New revelations on any subject are always suspect to those who think they already know the truth.

In the last chapter of the book "Evolution in the Light of Modern Knowledge," Dr. J. M. Wilson writes of the new knowledge, of which the term " evolution " is the comprehensive description, as being for our generation a new revelation. This new knowledge is beyond question incompatible with some of the presuppositions on the basis of which the whole structure of Christian theology was built up. From the point of view of the old theology the revolt against "evolution " in our own country in the 'sixties and 'seventies, in which all ranks took part from the bishops downwards, was justified. The old theology and the new evolution could not live together. Only those who realized the difference between theology and religion could escape the feeling that the new knowledge dealt a deadly blow at religion. It is, of course, the same feeling that accounts for the passion of the antievolution campaign in America during the last few years.

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England it would be difficult to arouse such passion to-day, but it faithfully reflects the state of public opinion in England sixty or seventy, or even fewer, years ago; and the Churches in America have still to go through the harassing process by which free course for the newer views has been claimed and won in England. As a matter of fact it is only to a very limited extent that free course has been won. We are still at the stage of half-acceptances, halfreconciliations and compromises between the old and the new. But it is much to have the principle recognized, as it generally is to-day, that science and religion cannot be opposed to each other. There has been at least a change of climate.

The change is apparent in the different titles of two books, both begotten in America, that deal with the subject. The former, by Prof. J. W. Draper, with its preface dated December, 1873, was on the "History of the Conflict between Religion and Science." The latter by Prof. A. D. White, published in 1896, had as its title "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology." Both books are historical and cover much of the same ground, but in the interval between them the horizon had cleared. In the later book the warfare of science is seen to be one with theology rather than with religion. There had been rapprochement on both sides. Science had become less dogmatic and less confident that it could solve all the problems of existence. Religious people had accommodated themselves to the idea of evolution as a description of the ways in which God worked in the world and had begun to think that all that was true in evolution could be reconciled with their theology.

During the thirty years that have passed, since the title of Prof. White's book registered the view that it was traditional theology rather than religion that was affected by the new advance of science, there has been a kind of armistice. Science has steadily consolidated its victory and added to its achievements in every branch of its activities. Religion has been studied in its various manifestations more closely than ever before, and the attempt to distinguish its real character has led, at least for many competent students, to the conviction that the religious emotion is no creature of imagination but a reaction to something which is as much a reality as anything of which we have experience. Religion does not evaporate in the clear light of science. It is something which science itself must bring to account if ever it

goes beyond its domain of description of ways and means, and essays the task of interpreting the facts it discovers about the universe and the life history of man.

That this task of interpretation is not the proper business of science has been loudly proclaimed in recent years alike in its own camp, and by those who think that the interests of religion can best be served by building a ring fence round them, and closely delimiting the sphere of science. No doubt each domain has its own set of phenomena, which can be isolated for the purpose of description. But it may well be thought that the days of such ring fences have passed. The reality which religion divines and feeds on, if it be real, must be congruous with any reality science meets in its voyage of discovery; and religion must bring to account the findings of science if it is to justify itself as something more than the illusion which in some quarters it is still assumed to be. Or if the religious emotion is, indeed, a kind of divination of one aspect of reality and may ignore all other aspects, content with its one pearl of great price; at least the theology in which it enshrines itself must not be inconsistent with what is known of other aspects of the universe, towards something to which the religious emotion is our immediate response. For these reasons it is in the interests of religion itself, as well as of theology, that we should from time to time be given a statement by those who are engaged in the work of investigation of the present position of knowledge in the domain of the natural sciences.

Such a statement, by experts in the different departments, is before us in the volume, "Evolution in the Light of Modern Knowledge." One reviewer has found the chief significance of the book in the fact that it shows how little is known. To others it will be peculiarly valuable not only for the wealth of facts it presents, and its survey of the various theories that have been offered to embrace them, but also because the subjects most closely touching human interests have been entrusted to writers who are far from being neutral as between conflicting views. For example, the authors of the chapters on biology (Professor Lloyd Morgan), zoology (Professor MacBride), anthropology (Professor Elliot Smith), mental evolution (Professor McDougall), are all champions of particular interpretations of the data in their own subjects which are not as yet accepted by all of their own households. The chapter on philosophy by Dr. A. E. Taylor, with all

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its many excellences and its valuable warnings as to the danger of presuppositions," cannot be said to be free from statements and arguments of a tendentious character. But only the superficial reader can be misled. Each writer gives a fair survey of other views than his own, and the method enlists the reader's interest

1 and leaves him free to appreciate for himself the present position 1 of knowledge in each special study. He can understand what the

problem before the specialist is, and the uncertainties by which he is confronted. He is made free of the specialist's knowledge, and brought abreast of his times.

It is in regard to the factors of biological evolution that Mr. Cutler's little book is a valuable supplement to the larger volume on evolution. Its aim is "to present, in as simple a manner as possible, some of the results of modern research on the great questions of evolution, variation and heredity," and it has the higher forms of secondary schools in view. It seems to be admirably adapted for its purpose, but it is especially for its statement of the Mendelian position that readers of the larger work will welcome it, when once they have grasped the technical terminology which cannot be avoided.

Mr. Cutler is not at one with Professor MacBride in his assertion that "within the last fifteen years carefully devised experiments have proved beyond reasonable doubt that the effects of use and disuse are inheritable " (" Evolution," p. 238). On the contrary, he declares that "evidence in support of the inheritance of acquired characters is unsatisfactory in that it is almost always capable of interpretation in more than one sense, or else is of an indirect nature" (p. 111; cf. p. 114). He marks the distinction between such cases and those of discontinuous variation (or sports, or saltations) where there is change of the actual constitution of the parts concerned in an individual, not by use or disuse, but at birth. Such a change may be inherited, as in the case of the short-legged ram that suddenly appeared in America in 1791 and became the progenitor of the famous breed of Ancona sheep incapable of jumping fences. The fact that the new character of short-leggedness was inherited shews that a change had occurred in the cell nucleus of the individual ram. There had been permutations or new combinations or changes in the "factors" of the parent's germ-cells: but how this change occurred is at present unknown. Whereas acquired characters are

VOL 243. NO. 495.

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