in all its issues and implications. The stage of uninquiring agreement has been passed, discussion has elicited a wide diversity of opinions, but the ultimate tendency cannot fail to be toward a more enlightened harmony of views. The critics of Prof. Tyndall of course differ with him, but their differences among each other are no less marked, and their positions are often mutually destructive of each other. It will be instructive to call attention to some of the indications of conflicting opinion and converging advancement, exemplified by the later and more carefully-considered criticisms.
We have now before us three-ably written articles, called out by Prof. Tyndall's address: one in Blackwood's Magazine for November, entitled "Modern Scientific Materialism;" another in the Penn Monthly for December, by R. C. Thompson, who aims to answer the question, "What would Tyndall be at?" and a third in the January International Review, entitled "Ideas in Nature overlooked by Dr. Tyndall," which was contributed to that periodical by Dr. McCosh.
The first thing that strikes attention in perusing these papers is their substantial agreement in regard to the doctrine of Evolution. Dr. McCosh says: "Two great scientific truths have been established in this century. One is the doctrine of the conservation of energy.... the other great doctrine is that of development, acknowledged as having an extent which was not dreamed of till the researches of Darwin were published." The writer in the Penn Monthly is less explicit, but he assumes the principle, and would have no quarrel with it under a theistic interpretation. In fact, it is this which he contends for, and, without denying the process, is only inclined to belittle it. Of man he says: "His animal nature may or may not have owed its existence to the same process of Evolution that has brought forth each higher species from that below it. We think the question not worth a half of one per cent, of the ink and paper that have been wasted upon it. The motive of many, if not of most, of the denials might fairly be traced to a certain Neoplatonist contempt of the animal creation, which has no right to shelter itself behind the Bible. Moses's story of the origin of our animal nature is humbling enough; not less so if we construe his words as declaring its direct creation from the dust, than if we suppose that it passed through more elevated forms of existence before it attained its uprightness of stature and dignity of position. If Mr. Darwin teaches us the reality of our kinship on one side with the lower forms of life, and stirs in our hearts the feelings that that kinship should excite, he will not the less, but the more, fit us to claim a higher kinship with Him who giveth grace to the humble." Friend Thompson may be unhesitatingly "counted in" on the Evolution question, for he has evidently "conquered his prejudices" on the point of a low animal ancestry, and when this is done all the rest is comparatively easy. The writer in Blackwood's Magazine, so far from finding difficulty with the doctrine, takes to it admiringly. He says: "We have no quarrel with the evolutionary hypothesis in itself. It is an inspiring conception to look upon Nature in all its departments as intimately linked together from 'primordial germ' to the most fully-developed organism—from its rudest speck to its subtlest symmetry of form, or most delicate beauty of color. The idea of growth and vital affinity is, we readily grant, a higher idea than that of mere technic after the manner of men. There is no call upon us to defend the imperfect analogies by which past generations may have pictured to themselves the works of Nature."
This is a large concession, and indicates an immense step forward in man's
