Then came the Darwinian theory maintaining that the whole history of the living world is a history of slow and continuous evolution, chiefly by means of incessant strife, from lower to higher forms; that man himself had in this way gradually emerged from the humblest forms of the animal world; that most of the moral deflections which were attributed to the apple in Eden are the remains and traditions of the earlier and lower stages of his existence. The theory of continuous ascent from a lower to a higher stage took the place of the theory of the Fall as the explanation of human history. It is a doctrine which is certainly not without hope for the human race. It gives no explanation of the ultimate origin of things, and it is in no degree inconsistent with the belief either in a Divine and Creative origin or in a settled and Providential plan. But it is as far as possible removed from the conception of human history and human nature which Christendom during eighteen centuries accepted as fundamental truth. With these things have come influences of another kind. Comparative Mythology has accumulated a vast amount of evidence, showing how myths and miracles are the natural product of certain stages of human history, of certain primitive misconceptions of the course of nature; how legends essentially of the same kind, though with some varieties of detail, have sprung up in many different quarters, and how they have migrated and interacted on each other. Biblical criticism has at the same time decomposed and analysed the Jewish writings, assigning to them dates and degrees of authority very different from those recognised by the Church. It has certainly not impaired their significance as records of successive developments of religious and moral progress, nor has it diminished their value as expressions of the loftiest and most enduring religious sentiments of mankind; but in the eyes of a great section of the educated world it has deprived them of the authoritative and infallible character that was once attributed to them. At the same time historical criticism has brought with it severer standards of proof, more efficient means of distinguishing the historical from the fabulous. It has traced the phases and variations of religions, and the influences that governed them, with a fulness of knowledge and an independence of judgment unknown in the past, and it has led its votaries to regard in these matters a sceptical and hesitating spirit as a virtue, and credulity and easiness of belief as a vice.