The trend of this sort of argumentation was clear to some. Thus before the triumphant abolitionists even had time to relish their victory, women's suffrage emerged and employed the same tactic. Man's sense of fairness must be right. And it was thus that what Van Prinsterer feared came to pass. Bavinck knew that compromise with evolutionists was a fatal strategy.
All conservatism stands weak over against radicalism, with which it agrees in principle.
He who fully accepts the theory of development in the sensual observable world cannot dismiss at once and without explanation when spiritual phenomena appear. One fortification after another must be sacrificed, one line of defense after another be abandoned, and one concession after another be granted. The soul would be treated as just another department of science. The third component, the capitulation to egalitarianism and evolutionism by the Western church, was swift and pathetic, though, thank God, not entire. Nevertheless, the church was badly wounded, and hardly able to fend off the invasion of the Higher Critical method.