Liberty in the Nineteenth CenturyHolland, Frederic May
Philosophy
Liberty in the Nineteenth Century
Holland, Frederic May
Liberty; Social history
Clerical opposition increased the general unwillingness of scientific
men to snatch up new views. As early as 1863, however, Darwin received
the support of the famous geologist, Lyell, as well as of a younger
naturalist destined to achieve even more brilliant success. Huxley has
distinguished himself in arguments against the scientific value of the
Bible. Among his other exploits was a demonstration that a chain, in
which no link is missing, connects the horse with a small, extinct
quadruped possessed of comparatively few equine peculiarities. In this
case, transformation of species is an undeniable fact. Other young
naturalists in England, as well as in Germany, gradually became willing
to push the new view to its last results; and Darwin was encouraged
to publish, in 1871, his elaborate account of the origin of our race,
entitled _The Descent of Man_. The wrath of the churches blazed forth
once more; and Gladstone entered the arena. Englishmen ventured no
longer to say much about the differences between Moses and Darwin; for
the obvious retort would have been, "So much the worse for Moses." A
German Lutheran, however, bade his congregation choose between Christ
and Darwin; and the infallibility of Moses was asserted so zealously by
a Parisian Catholic as to win formal thanks from the Pope.
America was now wide awake; irreligious tendencies were assigned to
evolutionism by the president of Yale, as well as by some Princeton
professors; and one of these latter warned believers in the development
of man that they would be punished as infidels after death. The verdict
of men of science has at last been pronounced so plainly as to be
accepted by thoroughly educated people in the Northern States; but
the Southerners are more bigoted. Even so late as 1894, a professor
of biology at the University of Texas was dismissed, in violation of
contract, for teaching evolutionism. A similar offence had been found
sufficient, ten years before, by the Presbyterians of South Carolina,
for driving a devout member of their own sect from his chair in a
theological seminary. That popular writer on geology, Winchell, was
requested in 1878 by a Methodist bishop to resign a professorship at
Nashville, Tennessee, where he had expressed doubt of the descent of
all men from Adam. The geologist refused to resign, and the chair was
suppressed.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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