not
strictly the case. The real foundation was laid long ago. It is the law
of persistent force, acting on the universe. This is as old as Buddha,
and was a dogma of Buddhism. It has been enunciated in some form or
other for ages. But Darwin has infused into it a new vital strength,
has given it new application, has clearly explained its workings, has
been its prophet to the people. To fully understand the history and
progress of the Darwinian theory, we must look back many years, and
trace the influence which theology has had upon the advance of
scientific knowledge.

For centuries the Bible was understood to contain a perfect, exact,
undoubted account of the origin of the world. It was believed by
everybody that the world was made in six days. The very imperfect
acquaintance which the ancients had with geology and physics allowed
them to accept this relation unchallenged. Faith was far stronger than
reason; and, during the long ages in which the Church ruled supreme,
this statement was accepted and implicitly believed by the whole race of
Christians. But as men began to grow more enlightened,--as, one by one,
the secrets of nature were revealed to the students whose desire for
knowledge overbore their tacit acceptance of tradition,--doubts began to
arise as to the possibility of the truth of this long-cherished idea.
When the printing-press came, and enabled these ardent explorers to
communicate freely the results of their studious labors, the leaven of
discredit, thus disseminated, began to work in the mass, and the reason
of men began to rise beneath the superincumbent theological pressure
which had so long weighed upon it. The multitude of facts gathered
together by these careful students became, by and by, so vast, and the
conclusions to which they led so indubitable, that the theologians were
forced, out of simple common-sense, to revise their expoundings of the
sacred writings.

When it was found that the earth was made up of vast depositions of
matter which contained the remains of long-extinct creatures, whose
fragments were buried in solid rocks, once soft, oozy mud; when it was
found that other rocks, hundreds of feet in thickness, were wholly
composed of the imperishable remains of other extinct animals, which
once lived and died and were gathered together in waters which broke
over the very spot where these rocks now rise; when it was found that
untold millions of years were necessary for the formation o