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SOME THOUGHTS ON EVOLUTION.
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ST. EDMUND HALL, OXFORD.
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IN REPLY TO THE QUESTION :
" Are any of the Operations of Law in Nature the
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SOME THOUGHTS ON EVOLUTION.
I Lecture
BY
REV. CHARLES VOYŞEY, B.A.,
ST. EDMUND HALL, OXFORD.
IN REPLY TO THE QUESTION :
“ Are any of the Operations of Law in Nature the
Working out of a Preconceived Plan ?”
LONDON :
WILLIAMS & NORGATE,
14, HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN, AND
20, SOUTH FREDERICK STREET, EDINBURGH.
1888.
[ All rights reserved.]
Bh
263
1198
This Lecture has been delivered in Oxford, Cambridge,
Dulwich, and London.
Wenlee, libraries
9 -> 37 v
SOME THOUGHTS ON EVOLUTION.
31 mrt2 has
It may seem presumptuous in a professional teacher
of Religion to treat at all of a question which
belongs wholly to the region of Science ; but my
excuse, if any excuse be needed, is to be found in
the fact—which I hope will be made manifest in this
paper-that the doctrine of Evolution is closely
allied with the subject of religion ; that it is deemed
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dogmas of the popular theology, and that the very
foundations of Natural Religion or Theism may be
seriously affected according to the inferences which
may be drawn from the doctrine of Evolution. I
approach the subject with considerable hesitation
and becoming modesty, having as yet made out
no claim to being a “man of science,” yet able
to boast at least of having, from the very first
LLLL
fully accepted it as the truest and most reasonable
account heretofore rendered of the phenomena
of animal and vegetable life on this earth. It
was always to my mind a most satisfactory and
a 2
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even glorious solution of the problem of species, *
as well as a crushing refutation of the popular
cosmogony as given in the Biblical account of
creation Science has this high merit-of being
able to teach the uninitiated, with more or less
accuracy and rapidity, the results of previous years
of study and observation. The object of this paper
is not, therefore, to attempt the insane exploit of
picking holes in the doctrine of Evolution, or of
calling in question any part of its details, even if
some of them be less firmly established than others ;
but my object is to draw correct inferences from it,
in contrast with some inferences alleged to be legi-
timate, but which scientific men themselves would
not venture to affirm to be scientifically necessary.
I may also, I trust without presumption, suggest
that the gaps here and there in the chain of Evolu-
tion may be reasonably and even scientifically
filled up.
If I needed any further recommendation to a
kind and patient hearing, it will be found in the
following words addressed to me by one of our
leading scientific men :-
I cannot help feeling that the majority of thinking men of
science are not at heart believers. I know this to be the case in
many instances. Having thrown over Christianity, the general
attitude towards all theology is one of indifference. With respect
to religion-the emotional and moral side of human conduct-
very diverse opinions are held. It is said by some that this
higher nature has been evolved by the ordinary process of Evolu-
II
1
* Only used in the conventional sense.
C
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tion, and that the necessity for associating the development of
this higher nature with the existence of a personal God does not
exist. This is not tantamount to denying the existence of such
a God in toto; it is not, as is often erroneously stated, equivalent
to the Atheistic position on the one hand, nor, on the other hand,
is it equivalent to the position of the Agnostic. The Scientist
of the present time is daily confronted with the fact that order
exists everywhere in Nature, that everything that happens is
in accordance with law. To the older Theologians such an
admission seemed to necessitate the existence of a lawgiver ; but
the modern Scientist will tell you that this does not follow as a
logical necessity from his observations. There may be such a
Being, but this does not appear distinctly from the study of
operations going on in nature. By “natural law” is simply
meant that, so far as human observation goes, certain events
always follow certain other events in time; given certain con-
ditions, it can be said that certain other conditions will follow,
because they have always been found by observation to do so.
There is, then, in Nature, according to modern Science, no such
thing as accident or blind chance; because everything that hap-
pens is the result of something else that happened previously, and
so on backwards. We are bound, therefore, to admit that the same
antecedents always produce the same consequents; and this is a
belief forced upon us by the study of Nature, quite apart from any
belief in the existence or non-existence of a personal Deity.
Now (putting the Atheist out of the field), the Agnostic says
there is a Primary Cause, but that we can never know any-
thing about it; so that the Agnostic at once shuts himself off
from further investigation by declaring at the outset that he has
“no case.” He cannot prove that we can never know anything
about the Cause; any more than the Theist can prove that we
can learn something about that Cause. But the Theist may
legitimately hope to learn something about the Cause, because he
does not start with a Non possumus. The Agnostic scientist
has nothing further to say, therefore, against any person holding
such a belief (i.c., in the possibility of knowing something about
the nature of the Cause); but, as he believes that such
knowledge is unattainable, he will rigidly criticise any reason
that the Theist gives for his belief (or rather hope) of under-
standing something of the Infinite Cause.
The Agnostic and the Theist start then from a common
ground--the existence of a Universal Cause ; they both say that
the phenomena of nature lead them to believe in such a Cause,
because everything is caused, i.e., every event is the result of
something antecedent, and is not an isolated or independent
phenomenon. Taking the “ Laws of Nature" in the sense
formally used in this letter, the points which the Theist has to
make good appear to me to be these :--The Laws of Nature are
simply the orderly succession of phenomena. Are these Laws,
is this particular order, the working out of a preconceived plan ?
Can it be shown that in Natural Law there is evidence of design,
tending towards a certain result by a particular method of
working ? The Theist must prove this to be the case if he
wishes to win over the men of science to his own belief.
If you can make that good, if you can show that the Laws
of Nature give us any information concerning the attributes of
the First Cause, if you can point to unequivocal evidence of
design in the operation of these laws, you will have made a most
important step, and one which cannot fail to bring your cause
into more direct harmony with the views of men of science.
This gentle challenge I quote not only for my
justification in addressing myself to the scientific
world, but for its lucidity and simplicity in stating
the issue.
I begin with a word or two about the term
“ Design," because there is a sense commonly
attached to this word which is repudiated not only
by men of science but by myself. That term has
been used to signify a system of special creations
and adaptations such as we find recorded in Genesis,
involving the repeated interference of a Creator to
amend or to annul his work. It is a term which I
would, if possible, dispense with altogether in these
pages; yet some other term must be found to
express the idea which I want to convey ; and in
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order to avoid side issues or logomachy of any
kind, I will illustrate what I mean by a process
drawn from common life. By purpose, design, or
preconceived plan, or whatever term be agreed
upon, I want to express something analogous to the
following:
Let us suppose that I desire to communicate
some thoughts of mine to a distant friend. I sit
down at my table, taking pen, ink, and paper, and
write the words which I wish him to read. Having
folded my letter and placed it in a stamped enve-
lope, I rise from my chair, ring a bell, which is con-
structed for the purpose of calling my servant, who
soon appears to ask what I want done. I hand him
the letter with orders to put it into the post-office
letter-box. By an arrangement of a complicated
nature my letter, after being stamped and classified
and handed from office to office and thence by
rail or sea to the place where my friend lives, is
delivered into his hands, is opened by him and read,
and at that moment, my purpose, design, or precon-
ceived plan is accomplished. The links in the chain
are very many more than I have mentioned, or
than there would be space here to enumerate; but I
have mentioned a few of the chief of them to show
a purpose, the accomplishment of which involves a
highly complex system of intelligent arrangements
ultimately carried out, all or nearly all the links
requiring individual intelligence to make each one
efficient and to join it to the link before and
after.
CON
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7
This is a specimen of what I mean by design, or
purpose, or preconceived plan. May I not describe
it in general terms as a purpose which could not
have originated without intelligence, and could not
have been fulfilled without intelligence in the
process ?
Now it seems to me that my task, as set me by
my scientific friend, is to prove that there is some
such purpose as this in the operation of the laws of
Nature-even in one such law. It will suffice to
prove that we may and must attribute intelligence
to the First Cause, if anywhere in the system of
Evolution I can demonstrate the existence of one
such intelligent purpose.
No wonder that I feel diffident in the presence of
such a problem bearing such issues. But I do insist,
in spite of appearances, that I am not entering upon
this question with'a foregone conclusion. Although
I cannot divest myself of my belief in God, as the
conscious, wise and loving Author and Ruler of
the World, that belief of mine does not rest on the
scientific hypothesis before us; my faith rests on
other and, I think, far stronger ground than any
scientific demonstration could afford ; and therefore
I am not sure, even now as I enter upon this task,
whether the “intelligent purpose" can be demon-
strated. I have not, then, undertaken it with a
foregone conclusion; for I do not require its
verification for my own interests, or for the
strengthening of my own belief.
Let us take for our field of illustration, some of
f
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VI
those cases of so-called adaptation in the evolution
of certain animals, butterflies, and insects, which
vary in colour to match the ground on which they
live--presumably for the sake of concealment from
their foes.
Writing as I now do for men of science, I need
not encumber my arguments with the long list of
variations of this kind; for other readers I may
mention that a delightful account of many of them
is given in the Cornhill Magazine for February,
1887, under the title of “Strictly Incog."
Successive varieties have often been maintained
in the male of a species, presumably in conse-
quence of a preference for those variations by the
female.
But although these classes of variation obviously
result in the perpetuation of the particular subjects
of these variations, this is not the point on which
I desire to dwell.
Granted that the variation is needed to produce a
particular result-and I suppose no one will demur
to this hypothesis, seeing that the result could not
be brought about in any other way-what I want to
know is, who or what is the moving agent in pro-
ducing the change, the succession of changes, in the
subjects of the variation. Take a pair of butterflies,
e.g., who find it difficult to perpetuate their species
in their environment without some modification in
their colour, or in the shape and colour of their
larvæ. In course of time the necessary modification
is made, the reason why may be obvious, but how
(1 5
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10
the change is produced, or even initiated, is not told
us. The change itself involves that of structure, of
chemical arrangement, of high optical science.
What can the parent butterflies know about these
necessary changes ? And if they knew what was
necessary, how could they set about introducing
even one of them ? Could they make, as it
mother can do is to choose a father for her off-
spring according to her taste, which she had no
more power to create within herself than to dis-
obey its impulse. She can but lay her own eggs,
which are constructed for her and by her own
organism absolutely independent of her control.
It is not left to her to decide even of what sex
her eggs shall be; or, if of two sorts, how many
there shall be of each sex. The same, of course,
holds good through countless generations of their
posterity, the latest of which are immeasurably
more beautiful to our eyes than the ancestral pair
with which we started.
Look for a moment at one of the most lovely
butterflies of New Grenada-Morphis Cypris. The
colour of the female is an inconspicuous fawny
brown, as near the colour of a dead leaf as can be ;
the male in one position is more variegated certainly,
but not at all conspicuous. Reverse his position,
and the wings are now glittering with a celestial
blue. To what mechanism is this change of colour
due ? : To an exquisitely minute striation of the
scales, by which the light falling upon them is
IT
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broken, and assumes different colours according to
the varied refraction.
It might be easy, indeed, to dispute the purpose
for which this butterfly is so richly endowed-to
dispute whether or not it was for purposes of safety
from foes, or of attraction to the female, or both.
But I urge that it is not easy to account for the en-
dowment at all without assuming intelligent purpose
in the process of producing it. Clearly it is due to
something or some one possessed of what we call
mind. We are limited, I think, to these alternatives.
We must ascribe to all the individuals of the lineal
ancestry a purpose of working up to the Morphis
Cypris, and knowing exactly what to do to produce
it in the end by minute successive variation, and
knowing also how to do it, involving, as we see, a
far higher knowledge than we men possess, and
infinitely greater power. The other alternative is,
that a process, involving so much knowledge, and
issuing in a creature whose construction involves
the right application of optical laws only known to
a comparatively few men, and whose very safety
depends on that construction, has been through
long ages brought about by an intelligent being
working in and upon the whole line of its
ancestry.
: This process, and thousands of analogous pro-
cesses, are not brought about by natural laws, but
according to and in harmony with natural laws.
These “laws” are mere terms for convenience of
language. They can do nothing at all. We loosely
LUI
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say, Nature works so and so. Her methods and
results are so orderly, that we can deduce general
principles from what is wrought. These principles
we call “laws.” “ Laws” is the name we give
to the grammar of the language of Nature. As
language comes first, and grammar is only a deduc-
tion from the language, so Nature's works precede
our investigation of them, and are followed by
our deducing our observations of these works into
“ natural laws.” It is just as inaccurate to say that
the Laws of Nature produce the phenomena, as to
say that the grammar of a language produces the
faculty of speech.
It may still be replied to me : Nature does this;
Nature has produced this Morphis Cypris. Well,
call it what you will, it is intelligent. That is my
contention. I find here an elaborate process neces-
sitating a high degree of intelligence ; and if that
process is entirely due to Nature, then Nature is
intelligent, and the word “Nature” is then a
synonym for what in relation to phenomena I call
"God," for intelligence such as this involves will.
And I would remind those who use the term Nature
in this connection, and spell it with a capital N,
that in so doing they are, contrary to all the axioms
of Science, reverting to mythology, and might as
well talk of Juno or Pallas Athênê. I prefer, as
not only more exact but more scientific, the sacred
name of God.
The name, however, so far as the present argu-
ment is concerned, matters nothing at all. The
LU
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13
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fact of intelligent purpose is, in my mind, esta-
blished by the process of the development of this
butterfly ; not merely because its existence, as it
is, fulfils a plan or part of a plan in terrestrial life,
but also because the mere production of it in the
way in which it has been produced, demanded and
necessitated an amount of intelligence and know-
ledge greater than any of which man is capable, and
an intelligence which is not identical with the
subject of the process.
It is to be observed, moreover, that the “environ-
ment” is no help to the solution of the problem
before us. The “environment” explains why modi-
fications are needed ; it teaches nothing whatever
as to the means whereby the organic changes are
produced.
You may go back to your unquestioned and un-
impeachable laws, the tendency to variation, the
tendency to fixity, the struggle for existence, the
conflict with and adaptation to environment, natural !
selection and the survival of the fittest. The chain
looks perfect, and in any case is a marvellous
product of the human mind in writing down the
grammar of the language of Nature. But from
beginning to end, this scheme of Evolution only
tells us why. Never how. These laws explain the
reasons why such things are as they are. They do
not, because they cannot, unfold to us the means
whereby these results have been achieved. Not a
line of your magnificent theory may be false, and
yet it may fall short of the full truth. Why should
14
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it not, since it only deals with a part-a very large
part, it is true--but not with the whole ?
'I rely immensely on the reiterated assurance of
scientific men that everything is caused, nothing is
haphazard or accidental in the whole realm of
nature ; and I rely, moreover, on the scientific
principle that we are bound to discover the cause of
anything and everything if we can ; that no leaps
may be consciously taken, or gaps wilfully left un-
filled ; and on these grounds I have felt bound to ask
the question, By what intelligence, or by whose
intelligence, have the necessary changes in structure
been directed and wrought ?
Take again what is called “the survival of the
fittest," which means not necessarily the survival
of the strongest, or of the best from our point of
view, but simply the survival of those which are
best adapted to their environment. It might seem,
at first sight, that this required no ingenuity, no
intelligence, but was an operation that performed
itself. Granting the fitting food and other condi-
tions of life, the special race will live; where those
conditions are absent, the race dies out. But when
we look more closely into the working of this law,
we see something which was not before obvious,
and which gives rise to quite new questions. We
see that the races which successively appear and
disappear, and those which from being dominant
sink down into subordinate places, are always suc-
ceeded by organisms more complex, “superior," as
we call them, by comparison with their predeces-
T
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sors, and ever rising in the scale from mollusc to
man. The Times, April 23rd, on Sir William Grove,
says:-
All thinkers have had to note the existence of continual war
throughout creation. Death and life, good and evil, charity and
malignity are manifestations of it. Race has been observed
battling with and trampling down race. The nutriment of one
creature has been known to mean the destruction of another.
The ravages of fire, the fury of floods, the angry strife of wits
moralists. The universality of conflict has been for ages a
commonplace of philosophers and poets. To a certain degree its
necessity has been acknowledged. By Darwin its virtue was
perceived as well as its power. He traced its invincible and
indispensable utility in compelling organised vitality to ascend
through an infinity of stages from imperfection towards perfec-
tion. Sir William Grove completes the chain by his claim for it
of the rank of a law of nature, inorganic as well as organic, as
active in life as in death, as potent for preserving as for trans-
forming, as sensibly benignant as it is ultimately salutary.
The 6 survival of the fittest” is now seen to be
it is a means to an end, not an end in itself at all.
The purpose of the struggle and the survival be-
comes obvious as the intention to progress. I do
not myself see how any one could fail to recognise
this purpose ; if it be recognised, it is all I ask. It
is equivalent to the admission of an intelligent will
at work through the law.
The problem of progress is further complicated
by the necessity for preserving a proper balance
between all the varied forms of vegetable and animal
life. Manifestly if the balance were to be destroyed,
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16
progress might be arrested at any period, and retro-
gression and reversion set in till all life disappeared
from the earth. Any thoughtful person would see,
in a moment's reflection, that if any one species were
to become so dominant as to imperil the existence
of all the rest, the conditions of its own life would
sooner or later become impossible. We can see then
why the balance should be preserved, but how it
is preserved we cannot see unless we assume an
intelligent control.
Chance, or “accident," as the sapient writer in the
Cornhill called it, being by common consent eliminated
from our hypothesis, the conditions respectively of
environment and organism must be inevitably regu-
lated by intelligence in order to preserve the balance
necessary to permanence and progress. Environ-
ment works wonders, but it does not do everything ;
there is the factor of organic structure perpetually
adapting itself (as we say so inaccurately), and there
is also the factor of intelligence forcing the other
two factors into a new product, viz. :-Progressive
development. The struggle for existence implies
an effort to spread everywhere and become the
masters of the field; but when we say these words,
we surely do not mean to attribute to any individual
member of a species any conscious desire or purpose
to do anything of the kind. What we mean is this,
that the race, as a whole, is impelled by its instincts
of hunger to sustain its life, and by its instincts of
generation to secure posterity. The fulfilment of its
purpose entails a struggle with other races equally
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JOULUU
17
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bent on life and posterity, and if the struggle be
successful it survives, if not, it perishes and gives
place to a race more fitted to the surrounding con-
ditions of life and struggle.
In what or in whom, I ask, does this purpose
reside ? Even if we examine ourselves, who ought
to know most and to have the fullest self-conscious-
ness, we shall fail to discover the purpose in our
own minds. We men, even, do not set about the
work of securing our own survival as a race with
any conscious purpose of doing so. We are con-
scious of hunger, no doubt, and fight fiercely enough
to get fed; but the security of offspring and the
endurance of a posterity has not been left to any so
slender an inducement as the perpetuation of our
species. Posterity there would be none, but for the
imperious appetite, the gratification of which alone
would secure it. In other words, our own survival
is known to us, not as a thing secured by any pur-
pose of ours to survive, but only by the indulgence
of desires implanted by a power not our own, and
made imperative beyond all other physical im-
pulses. If this is the case with us men, who
already possess so high a degree of intelligence, we
must admit likewise that survival at all, not to say
survival of the fittest, is the result of a precon-
ceived plan or purpose, which the several members
of the race have not thought of nor entertained. The
purpose of continuance is achieved only by a round-
about method of stimulating a desire for physical
gratification. When birds pair in spring-time, we
Y
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ny
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18
may be quite sure they do not do so with any
conscious desire to perpetuate their species, but
only to gratify a native instinct for pleasure.
By all this, I fear, somewhat rugged and dis-
jointed talk, I am endeavouring to show that the
struggle for existence, natural selection and sur-
vival of the fittest, cannot rightly be ascribed, as
conscious effort for a definite purpose, to the sub-
jects of these laws. The purpose, to our eyes, is
manifest-the survival of the fittest. It is equally
manifest that the purpose is intelligent, and that it
does not reside in the individuals who enact the
scene.
A word, too, on the subject of food. To a large
extent we may admit that the living creatures are
so and so because the food attainable by them would
not suit them if they were otherwise than they are.
Let that adaptation go. Still there remains the
question as to the purpose for which the food sup-
ply has been made so infinitely varied ; I speak
now only of vegetable food for herbivorous animals.
If I am right, there was an intelligent purpose in
rendering the supply so various, viz., to support the
life of so many various types. And if you turn to
the animal world you will see, from water-bugs and
spiders up to man, a purpose or preconceived plan
of destruction continually ministering to new life.
Death not wasted by any means, but made useful
and subservient to the great purpose of evolving
higher and higher types. It is permissible in any
one to call in question the purpose on moral
In
19
YT
grounds ; * but it is not permissible to any one to
doubt the fact that this universal eating of each
other by most of the animal races has a purpose
in it of far larger scope than mere gratification of
hunger. Nay, the hunger is put there, the craving
for flesh food implanted, in order that the larger
purpose of continual destruction may be carried. on,
and carried on too with the least possible noisome-
ness arising from decay. If a tenth part of the
creatures now killed as prey and eaten as food were
to be left to die and rot on the ground, the rest of
the animal world would be poisoned by the stench.
Therefore death, and this particular kind of death
by animals of prey, has manifestly a purpose and a
variety of purposes, with which even the depre-
dators have nothing to do, and which the victims
certainly cannot be said to have cherished. The
purpose is manifest. It is no less manifest that
the subjects of these conditions did not think
of or entertain that purpose ; that purpose being
intelligent, we must ascribe it to an intelligent
being.
Quite apart from theology or religious consola-
tions, it must be clear to every scientific mind, and
almost to every one of common sense, that the
highest results of Evolution could not be secured
without death and destruction. If comfort and
convenience be considered, these would soon be-
* Miss Cobbe has recently done so in the Fortnightly Review for
January, and I have answered her objections elsewhere.
20
LUUN
come impossible by increase without removal. If
life itself were the sole object, it would be ulti-
mately frustrated, if death could be suspended for a
sufficient length of time. To enable any to live
some must surely die.
At the risk of repetition, I call attention to the
fact that death—and especially death by. animals
feeding upon each other-marks a purpose in
which they at least have no voice; the purpose is
not capable of being fastened upon either the killers
or the killed. It is part of a plan which they had
no share in arranging. It is preconceived, it is a
step absolutely essential to Evolution, it is there-
fore intelligent and must be ascribed to an intel-
ligent being, and therefore to God.
I take one more illustration--this time from
astronomy.
I venture to lay down the axiom, which has been
used before our time, that if intelligence is required
to understand a law or operation in Nature, intelli-
gence was required to frame the law or to perform
the operation.
The observations of the motions of the planets
enabled Kepler to deduce three laws, which have
been ever since called after his name.
1. Each planet revolves around the sun in an
elliptical path, having the sun at one of the foci.
. 2. Every planet moves round the sun with such
29
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1
Ayn
011
4
drawn from it to the sun passes over equal areas
in equal times.
21
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an
3. The squares of the periodic times are propor-
tioned to the cubes of the mean distances.
These discoveries did indeed redound to the
glory of Kepler, · and will be memorable for ad-
miration while man endures. But Kepler could
not do more than record the results of his
patient investigation. He could not tell why the
planets should move in elliptical instead of circular
orbits, &c.
But Newton came afterwards into the field with
his law of gravitation, and by a profound mathe-
matical process demonstrated the reasons why those
laws of Kepler's were true, and why no other laws
could have been true.
Even when Kepler arrived at his discovery of the
facts, he was forced to ejaculate, “ () God, I think
Thy thoughts after Thee!” What, then, must be our
greater rapture and deeper conviction on coming
into view of Newton's elaborate calculations which
threw a flood of fresh light upon those facts, and ex-
plained them and proved their antecedent necessity!
In the presence of such evidence as this, I contend
that the intelligence needful to adjust the solar
system on these laws must at least have been as
great as the intelligence which is required to under-
stand the adjustment. Not one man in a hundred
thousand even to-day is familiar with the mathe-
matical formulæ of Newton's Principia, and much
fewer indeed are those who have been over the
ground which he travelled step by step. The pro-
cess required the highest energy and skill of what
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we call the human mind. It is almost an insult
to our understandings to tell us, or even to suggest,
that the operations of Nature thus explained were
wrought out without any intelligence, or purpose,
or preconceived plan.
Professor F. W. Newman has an observation to
make on this point which I will quote as the testi-
mony of a thoughtful man, but not commending the
contemptuous tone in which it is given :-
The doctrine of Gravitation proclaims a divine mind ever
acting on every particle of matter so clearly, that a modern
scientist who denies it is as absurd and as little deserving of
attention as one who denies the received geometry of triangles.
Particles of matter in the clouds or in the planets conduct them-
selves as if they knew the precise distance which separates them
from other particles in the Earth or Sun, and put forth a million
million tugs carefully adjusted upon bodies far out of their reach.
Newton, no doubt, believed and taught that this mysterious
gravitation was a Divine force. To ascribe it to the blind and
inert particles, as if they had knowledge of the distance of other
particles, and there were no other higher mind behind to guide
them, degrades a man of science to the level of a fetish savage
in the very lowest stage of the human intellect, and forfeits all
right of respect from thoughtful men.-(Christianity in its Cradle,
2nd Edition, F. W. Newman, p. 170.)
And just as life on earth remains as yet an in-
soluble enigma without an Eternal Author and
Giver of Life, so the initial motion of the planets
and stars is an insoluble enigma without a living
will to give the first impulse. Much more insoluble
still would be the mystery of the exceedingly com-
plicated mathematical arrangement by which their
regularity and eccentricity are alike maintained in the
midst of a, ceaseless power of attraction exercised by
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every portion on every other portion of the solar
system.
Here is our own planet rushing on its orbit
through space, at the mean rate of 18 miles a second,
sometimes slackening, sometimes augmenting its
speed ; enticed here by one planet, and there by
another, and always more or less dragged by the
moon, yet never deviating by one hair's breadth
from the plane in which it was started, and accom-
plishing its annual journey of 583,000,000 miles
with such absolute punctuality as to turn up to time
at Greenwich within the hundredth part of a second.
If the bare fact were all we knew, that might well
stir our wonder and delight; but when we see how
much more there is behind the bare fact, what
amazingly complex and delicate calculation was
necessary to establish the right conditions for the
accomplishment of the fact, we are simply forced to
acknowledge the presence and activity of an in-
telligent Being, whom we call intelligent only for
want of a higher term, but intelligent because there
is something in common between our mind which
can understand the process and the reasons for it,
and His mind which ordained the process, and did
so of set purpose. For whenever we speak of
the intelligence or mind of God, we do so in
profound consciousness that such a term is wholly
inadequate to describe mental powers of which our
own are but an infinitesimal reflection.
Certainly the romance of Evolution - I say
“ romance” because of the fascinating interest
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which clusters round every one of its details-while
it is the crowning triumph of science in the Vic-
torian age, and has been the means of under-
mining the false and foolish theology which has
so long oppressed Christendom, is nevertheless
highly favourable to the claims of natural and
true religion ; and even if this be disputed for a
time by hasty and superficial writers, it can be
demonstrated at this very hour that Evolution
has not, in the whole of its system, or in any
part of its details, one word to say against the
reasonable and natural inference that a living God
is the soul and force of all, and that in regard
to all things and forces in the whole realm
of Nature, it may truly and reverently be
declared-
“He hath given them a law which shall not be
broken!”
WERTHEIMER, LEA & CO., Printers, Circus Place, London Wall.
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