EVOLUTION.

Thames Star, Volume XIII, Issue 4263, 30 August 1882, Page 2

EVOLUTION.

(To the Editor of the Evbking Stab.)

Sir,—The valorous defenders of ancient superstitions, profound dogmas, and reverent absurdities, evidently think that * the province and object of science is to attack and demolish all sorts and descriptions of revealed religion. In this wild" and blind belief, frantic efforts are made bj the clergy of all denominations, to reconcile science with revelation, or to discredit the discoveries and deductions of the former. Some of these attempts are so vapid as to render them unworthy of reply, containing as they do neither sense nor argument, and abounding in Christian twaddle not worth noticing. The synopsis of lectures or sermons on " Evolution " and ■" Life " which have appeared in the newspapers manifest a smarting under the.,, imagined insult that these theories offer to religion, and one rev. gentleman, with a zeal worthy of Sancho Panza, draws his spear and charges upon the dangerous foe —the windmill of evolution —which in the simplicity of his heart he seems to think a new idea. La Place, Herschel and other distinguished philosophers arid as«,, tronomers, however, found evidence in the universe that not only man and the whole, solar system, but other suns and worlds, have been produced, and are being produced, by evolution. Writers on this subject do not, however, attack, or wish to attack, any system of religion; fchey-> simply contend that" it is an hypothesis which regards all nature physical and biological as the result of development from the general to the special, from the simple to the complete, at the same time viewing human progress, the growth of '"* language, literature, moral and religious sentiments, science and art, as but the higher and ultimate results of the same natural laws acting through endless variation. The idea of evolution is truly philosophical, and a full explanation of its working will ere long be furnished to - the world [by " Credenda ? "^-Eiv] •-■ There are many works upon natural selection which accouut for the transmission and perpetuation of useful variations, and there can be little doubt that an homogeneous distribution of matter might produce ;, a. heterogeneous dynamically; stable Universe, with;'the 'subsequent) development of life, instinct, reason, and social and moral qualities.—l am, &C;,

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