erably oppressive situation. Like Bunyan's pilgrim
they could not see the wicket gate, nor the Slough of Despond, nor the
castle of Giant Despair; but they saw the shining light at the end of
the path, and so started gaily towards it as Evolutionists.

And they were right; for the problem of evil yields very easily to
Creative Evolution. If the driving power behind Evolution is omnipotent
only in the sense that there seems no limit to its final achievement;
and if it must meanwhile struggle with matter and circumstance by
the method of trial and error, then the world must be full of its
unsuccessful experiments. Christ may meet a tiger, or a High Priest
arm-in-arm with a Roman Governor, and be the unfittest to survive under
the circumstances. Mozart may have a genius that prevails against
Emperors and Archbishops, and a lung that succumbs to some obscure and
noxious property of foul air. If all our calamities are either accidents
or sincerely repented mistakes, there is no malice in the Cruelty
of Nature and no Problem of Evil in the Victorian sense at all. The
theology of the women who told us that they became atheists when they
sat by the cradles of their children and saw them strangled by the hand
of God is succeeded by the theology of Blanco Posnet, with his 'It was
early days when He made the croup, I guess. It was the best He could
think of then; but when it turned out wrong on His hands He made you and
me to fight the croup for Him.'

HOW ONE TOUCH OF DARWIN MAKES THE WHOLE WORLD KIN

Another humanitarian interest in Darwinism was that Darwin popularized
Evolution generally, as well as making his own special contribution to
it. Now the general conception of Evolution provides the humanitarian
with a scientific basis, because it establishes the fundamental equality
of all living things. It makes the killing of an animal murder in
exactly the same sense as the killing of a man is murder. It is
sometimes necessary to kill men as it is always necessary to kill
tigers; but the old theoretic distinction between the two acts has been
obliterated by Evolution. When I was a child and was told that our dog
and our parrot, with whom I was on intimate terms, were not creatures
like myself, but were brutal whilst I was reasonable, I not only did not
believe it, but quite consciously and intellectually formed the opinion
that the distinction was false; so that afterwards, when Darwin's views
were first unfolded to me, I pr