The Gospel of Evolution: From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve LecturesAveling, Edward B.
Religion
The Gospel of Evolution: From "The Atheistic Platform", Twelve Lectures
Aveling, Edward B.
Evolution
"What prizes have you?" but "What have you learned?" We are coming to
recognise this in some measure in our estimates of grown men and women.
Still, however, to the vulgar, the measure of a man is the banker's
balance. But the thoughtful, as yet few in number, although the number
grows hourly, and even the commonplace people, if they are in the
unaccustomed atmosphere of culture, are estimating the value of a
human being by that which he actually does and is, rather than by the
magnitude of the cheques he can draw.
What is, then, this Evolution? In the asking this question and in the
attempt to answer we see how much happier is the position of the new
gospel as compared with that of the old. The good news of Christianity,
having no scientific and indeed no natural basis, has been Protean in
its forms. These have been indefinitely varied according to the taste
and fancy of the age and of the individual. The Gospel as preached
by Messrs. Benson, Booth, Baldwin Brown, Spurgeon, Liddon, Moody, is
somewhat mixed. But the new evangel is founded wholly on a natural
and scientific basis. There may be slight differences of opinion as
to matters of detail among its apostles and its disciples, but the
fundamental principles are accepted by all. Upon these, no doubt, much
less any dispute reigns.
Evolution is the name for the idea of the unity and continuity of
phsenomena. The popular and unscientific notion was that there was not
only an original effort on the part of the supernatural causing the
natural, setting it going, in fact, but a continual interposition of
the supernatural from without, controlling the natural. Evolution is
the doctrine of non-intervention. According to this gospel, matter and
motion are all in all. Matter is the convenient name for all that which
can affect the senses of man. Motion is change of place, whether it
be of large, palpable masses, as when the arm is raised, or of minute
impalpable molecules, as when heat or electricity is at work.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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