Such were the difficulties which loomed largest before the minds of vast numbers of thinking men and women, and did much to shake the general confidence in religion, in the years that followed the discoveries which culminated in the Darwinian theory of evolution. It must not be supposed that these thoughts were lightly entertained, nor may we imagine that they gave no distress to those who sincerely believed that they were bound to accept what seemed to be their inevitable consequences. To quote again from the _Candid Examination_ of Romanes, we may take it that he was speaking for many others when he said, "Forasmuch as I am far from being able to agree with those who affirm { 36} that the twilight doctrine of the new faith is a desirable substitute for the waning splendour of 'the old,' I am not ashamed to confess that, with this virtual negation of God, the universe to me has lost its soul of loveliness; and although, from henceforth the precept 'to work while it is day' will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the terribly intensified meaning of the words 'that the night cometh when no man can work,' yet when at times I think, as think at times I must, of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine, and the lonely mystery of existence as now I find it--at such times I shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my nature is susceptible."
[2] _The Riddle of the Universe_, Chaps. XIV, XV.
[8] _A Candid Examination of Theism_ (1876), pp. 171, f.
[9] _Nineteenth Century_, February, 1888.
It must not be imagined that all the arguments were on one side. Far from it. The defenders of the old faith were many, and not the least able of them were drawn from the ranks of the men of science. The list of scientific leaders who avowedly ranged themselves on the Christian side, if it were made out, would be a long one. It would include distinguished names such as those of Faraday, Joule, the Duke of Argyll, Lord Kelvin, Stokes, Tait, Adams, Clerk Maxwell, Salmon, Cayley, and Pasteur. And others would have to be added who, after contending for a while as materialists or agnostics, ultimately changed their attitude and joined the supporters of Theism. Haeckel frankly admitted that there were such defaulters from his cause in Germany, giving the names of "two of the most famous of living scientists, R. Virchow and E. Du Bois Raymond," amongst others. On the other hand he recommended his readers to study "the profound work of Romanes," { 38} without, it would seem, being aware of the transformation that took place in that thinker's opinions towards the end of his life.