The answer is, in the first place, because the theory of Evolution is to a great extent true.  When men speak of controversy with the Evolutionist and so forth, they of course mean such as insist on carrying the doctrine to a total and even virulent denial of any Divine control at all.  And it must, I think, be admitted that much of the theological opposition offered to the doctrine was aimed at this aspect of it.  At first, men zealous for what they believed to be Divine truth, did not discriminate; they saw that the then new idea of evolution was, in many branches of its application, still very poorly proved, and they conceived that it could not be accepted apart from a total denial of religion.  We have grown wiser in the course of time:  misconceptions have been swept away; and everybody may be content with the assurance that there is no necessary connection even, far less any antagonism, between evolution and the Christian faith at all.  We may admit all that is known of the one without denying the other.  Where the controversy has to be maintained is, that some will insist (like Professor Haeckel) in carrying evolution beyond what evidence will warrant; and not only so, but will insist on polemically putting down all religion on the strength of their improved theories.  If “Evolutionists” complain of the treatment they have received at the hands of “Theologians,” they will at least, in fairness, admit that there has been some misconception, some error on both sides.  What we maintain is, that evolution (i.e., here, as always, unlimited, uncontrolled evolution) still fails to account for many facts in nature; that we are still far from holding anything like a complete scheme in our hands; there may be limits to the wide circle of progressive changes, to the results of development, of which we are ignorant; and there is, above all, in that most important of all questions—­the descent of man—­an absolute want of proof of animal descent (i.e., in any sense which includes the “soul” or spiritual faculties of man).  Hence that evolution in no way clashes with an intelligent Christian belief.  In saying this, I would carefully avoid undervaluing the services which the evolution theory has rendered, and is rendering, to science.  Even in its first form as a mere hypothesis, it was an eminently suggestive one; there was from the first quite truth enough in it to make it fruitful, and many working hypotheses have been immensely useful in science, which have in the end been very largely modified.  Before Darwin’s wonderfully accurate mind and marvellous skill in collecting and making use of facts, turned the current of natural science into this new channel, men seemed to be without an aim for their naturalist’s work.  The savant, for example, procured an animal evidently of the cat tribe, and another species like a polecat.  He knew as a fact that the feline teeth had a certain structure, and that the dental formula of the viverrine