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Excerpt from Darwinism in Morals, 1872: And Other Essays, Reprinted From the Theological and Fortnightly Reviews, Fraser's and Macmillan's Magazines, and the Manchester Friend
That the doctrine of the descent of man from the lower animals, of which Mr. Darwin has been the great teacher, should be looked on as well nigh impious by men not mentally chained to the Hebrew cosmogony, has always appeared to me surprising. Of course, in so far as it disturbs the roots of the old theology and dispels the golden haze which hung in poetic fancy over the morning garden of the world, it may prove a rude and painful innovation. A Calvin, a Milton, and a Fra Angelico, may be excused if they recalcitrate against it. Doubtless, also, the special Semitic contempt for the brutes which has unhappily passed with our religion into so many of our graver views, adds its quota to the common sentiment of repugnance; and we stupidly imagine that to trace Man to the Ape is to degrade the progeny, and not (as a Chinese would justly hold) to ennoble the ancestry. But that, beyond all these prejudices, there should lurk in any free mind a dislike to Darwinism on religious grounds, is wholly beyond comprehension.
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