Matthew Arnold: "The existence of God is an unverifiable hypothesis."
Dr. Liddon, preaching in St. Paul's Cathedral on the Sunday after Darwin's death, devoted his matchless oratory to a eulogy in which there was not the remotest reference to the fact that the subject of it was a man who had formally repudiated not only Christianity but revealed religion. Here are the eloquent canon's opening words:—
"These reflections may naturally lead us to think of the eminent man, whose death during the past week is an event of European importance; since he is the author of nothing less than a revolution in the modern way of treating a large district of thought, while his works have shed high distinction on English science."
Dr. Laing, of Cambridge University, on the other hand, expressed with refreshing candour his objections to the proposed interment of Darwin in Westminster Abbey:—
"They urged his claim to Abbey honours on the very ground of his having been the chief promoter of the atheistic mock-doctrines of evolution of species and the ape-descent of man. It is, therefore, as the high priest of dirt-worship that the English nation has assigned to him the privilege of being interred in a temple dedicated to the service of his Creator."