On the Genesis of Species | Page 7

a great crowd of half-educated
men and shallow thinkers should accept with eagerness the theory of

"Natural Selection," or rather what they think to be such (for few things
are more remarkable than the way in which it has been misunderstood),
on account of a certain characteristic it has in common with other
theories; which should not be mentioned in the same breath with it,
except, as now, with the accompaniment of protest and apology. We
refer to its remarkable simplicity, and the ready way in which
phenomena the most complex appear explicable by a cause for the
comprehension of which laborious and persevering efforts are not
required, but which may be represented by the simple phrase "survival
of the fittest." With nothing more than this, can, on the Darwinian
theory, all the most intricate facts of distribution and affinity, form, and
colour, be accounted for; as well the most complex instincts and the
most admirable adjustments, such as those of the human eye and ear. It
is in great measure then, owing to this supposed simplicity, and to a
belief in its being yet easier and more simple than it is, that Darwinism,
however imperfectly understood, has become a subject for general
conversation, and has been able thus widely to increase a certain
knowledge of biological matters; and this excitation of interest in
quarters where otherwise it would have been entirely wanting, is an
additional motive for gratitude on the part of naturalists to the authors
of the new theory. At the same time it must be admitted that a similar
"simplicity"--the apparently easy explanation of complex
phenomena--also constitutes the charm of such matters as hydropathy
and phrenology, in the eyes of the unlearned or half-educated public. It
is indeed the charm of all those seeming "short cuts" to knowledge, by
which the labour of mastering scientific details is spared to those who
yet believe that {12} without such labour they can attain all the most
valuable results of scientific research. It is not, of course, for a moment
meant to imply that its "simplicity" tells at all against "Natural
Selection," but only that the actual or supposed possession of that
quality is a strong reason for the wide and somewhat hasty acceptance
of the theory, whether it be true or not.
In the second place, it was inevitable that a theory appearing to have
very grave relations with questions of the last importance and interest
to man, that is, with questions of religious belief, should call up an
army of assailants and defenders. Nor have the supporters of the theory

much reason, in many cases, to blame the more or less unskilful and
hasty attacks of adversaries, seeing that those attacks have been in great
part due to the unskilful and perverse advocacy of the cause on the part
of some of its adherents. If the odium theologicum has inspired some of
its opponents, it is undeniable that the odium antitheologicum has
possessed not a few of its supporters. It is true (and in appreciating
some of Mr. Darwin's expressions it should never be forgotten) that the
theory has been both at its first promulgation and since vehemently
attacked and denounced as unchristian, nay, as necessarily atheistic; but
it is not less true that it has been made use of as a weapon of offence by
irreligious writers, and has been again and again, especially in
continental Europe, thrown, as it were, in the face of believers, with
sneers and contumely. When we recollect the warmth with which what
he thought was Darwinism was advocated by such a writer as Professor
Vogt, one cause of his zeal was not far to seek--a zeal, by the way,
certainly not "according to knowledge;" for few conceptions could have
been more conflicting with true Darwinism than the theory he formerly
maintained, but has since abandoned, viz. that the men of the Old
World were descended from African and Asiatic apes, while, similarly,
the American apes were the progenitors of the human beings of the
New World. The cause of this palpable error in a too eager disciple{13}
one might hope was not anxiety to snatch up all or any arms available
against Christianity, were it not for the tone unhappily adopted by this
author. But it is unfortunately quite impossible to mistake his meaning
and intention, for he is a writer whose offensiveness is gross, while it is
sometimes almost surpassed by an amazing shallowness. Of course, as
might fully be expected, he adopts and reproduces the absurdly trivial
objections to absolute morality drawn from differences in national
customs.[7] And he seems to have as little conception of the distinction
between "formally" moral actions and those which are only
"materially" moral, as of that between the verbum mentale and the
verbum oris. As