ural selection must be
separated in theological no less than in biological estimation.
Evolution seemed inconsistent with Creation; natural selection with
Providence and Divine design.

Discussion was maintained about these points for many years and with
much dark heat. It ranged over many particular topics and engaged minds
different in tone, in quality, and in accomplishment. There was at
most times a degree of misconception. Some naturalists attributed to
theologians in general a poverty of thought which belonged really to
men of a particular temper or training. The "timid theism" discerned in
Darwin by so cautious a theologian as Liddon (H.P. Liddon, "The Recovery
of S. Thomas"; a sermon preached in St Paul's, London, on April 23rd,
1882 (the Sunday after Darwin's death).) was supposed by many biologists
to be the necessary foundation of an honest Christianity. It was really
more characteristic of devout NATURALISTS like Philip Henry Gosse,
than of religious believers as such. (Dr Pusey ("Unscience not Science
adverse to Faith" 1878) writes: "The questions as to 'species,' of what
variations the animal world is capable, whether the species be more or
fewer, whether accidental variations may become hereditary... and
the like, naturally fall under the province of science. In all these
questions Mr Darwin's careful observations gained for him a deserved
approbation and confidence.") The study of theologians more considerable
and even more typically conservative than Liddon does not confirm the
description of religious intolerance given in good faith, but in serious
ignorance, by a disputant so acute, so observant and so candid as
Huxley. Something hid from each other's knowledge the devoted pilgrims
in two great ways of thought. The truth may be, that naturalists took
their view of what creation was from Christian men of science who
naturally looked in their own special studies for the supports and
illustrations of their religious belief. Of almost every laborious
student it may be said "Hic ab arte sua non recessit." And both the
believing and the denying naturalists, confining habitual attention to a
part of experience, are apt to affirm and deny with trenchant vigour
and something of a narrow clearness "Qui respiciunt ad pauca, de facili
pronunciant." (Aristotle, in Bacon, quoted by Newman in his "Idea of a
University", page 78. London, 1873.)

Newman says of some secular teachers that "they persuade the world of