Essayists declared that this theory undermined the foundations of
morals. They said that it took away, not only the Bible, but God and
all rational religion. They told us that, in tracing the ancestry of
man back and down to the animals, humanity was being desecrated, and
that the essential feature of man as a child of God was being taken
away.
If I believed that any of these things were true, I might not be an
enemy of evolution, if indeed it be established; for there is very
little reason in a man's setting himself against an established truth.
But I should certainly be very sad, and should wish that we might hold
some other theory of things. But I believe that it will appear, as we
study the matter a little while carefully, that not only are these
charges that have been brought against the theory baseless, but that
right here is to be found not only the real progress of the world, but
the true conservatism. Evolution is the most conservative theory that
has ever been held. It keeps everything that has been found serviceable
to man. It may transform it. It may lift it to some higher level, on to
some loftier range of life; but it keeps and carries forward everything
that helps. This inevitably and in the nature of things.
There are two great tendencies which are characteristic of that method
of progress or growth which we call by the name of evolution. One is
the hereditary tendency, and the other is the tendency to variation.
One, if it were in full force, would merely, forever and forever,
repeat the past: the other, if it were in full force, would blot out
all the past, and forever be creating something new.
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