en Darwin announced his solution of
the problem. The religious world had been, up to that time, chained to
the anthropomorphic conception of Deity, and it was even less due to
the purely scientific faculty than to the philosophic that Darwin came
as a liberator from a depressing superstition,--the belief in the
terrible Hebrew God, ingrained in the conscience of every reverently
educated boy, and become in his growth inseparable from the maturer
beliefs. The evolution of the human mind itself had finally reached
the point at which this anthropomorphism became a thing impossible
to maintain reasonably any longer, and the magic word was spoken
by Darwin which broke the spell and set us free--who wished to be
free--from a mental servitude grown dangerously dear to our deepest
faculties, those of reverence and devotion. That evolution took hold
slowly with some who finally adopted it was owing to the fact that,
with them, that servitude had never been slavish, but always held less
sway than pure reason. And contemporaneously with this evolution of
the human mind had come the liberation from religious persecution,
either inquisitorial, legal, or social; and, perhaps for the first
time in the history of the religious dogma, a man might openly dispute
the fundamental ideas of a dominant religion and suffer no penalty for
his skepticism.

CHAPTER XVII

SWITZERLAND

Though my "Bed of Ferns" was sent back from the Academy, one of my
large studies was exhibited at the British Society, and the result of
the year's work was, on the whole, satisfactory. Ruskin invited me
to go to Switzerland with him for the summer, finding in some of my
studies and drawings the possibility of getting from me some of the
Alpine work he wanted done. Unfortunately for both of us I could not
draw well in traces, and he did not quite well know how to drive, and
the summer ended in disappointment, and finally in disaster. I was
too undisciplined to work except when the mood suited, and our moods
rarely agreed: he wanted things which were to me of no interest, and
I could not interest myself vicariously enough to do them to his
satisfaction. He preceded me some weeks, and it was arranged that I
should come to meet him at Geneva early in June. Certainly I owe
to him my earliest and most delightful memories of the Alps and of
Switzerland. More princely hospitality than his no man ever received,
or more kindly companionship; but, as might have bee