EX-PRESIDENT PORTER ON EVOLUTION. 581 



ment. Does he, then, believe in the theory of special creation ? Was 

 there no " becoming " for the forms we see ? Were they suddenly 

 flashed into existence by the Divine fiat, or did they struggle out of 

 the ground like Milton's horse ? There is little gained, from the 

 strictly orthodox point of view, in holding aloof from Darwin's con- 

 clusion, on the simple ground of the insufficiency of the evidence, if 

 you hold yourself prepared to accept it as soon as a little more evi- 

 dence is tendered. If the theologian descends into the arena, it should 

 be, not to declare that the Darwinian hypothesis is as yet unproved a 

 simple man of science, if he thought the facts warranted it, might do 

 that but to declare it, on a priori grounds, unprovable because false. 

 When Theology can take this tone and make it good, she will be 

 listened to ; but, when theologians merely potter in science, there is 

 really no special significance in their acceptance of this or their rejec- 

 tion of that scrap of scientific doctrine ; what their opinion, one way 

 or another, is worth, simply depends on the degree of their competency 

 in relation to the matter under discussion. This is a point that should 

 not be lost sight of ; for a certain illusion is apt to be created when a 

 professed theologian enters the scientific arena. He is popularly sup- 

 posed to carry with him certain higher canons of criticism, to represent 

 some authority that can traverse the decisions of science and hold them 

 in check. It is important, therefore, to watch him and see what he 

 does ; and if we observe that he is merely making what use he can of 

 his knowledge of the scientific elements of the case, and carefully 

 keeping his theological commission in his pocket, we should attach no 

 more importance to his intervention than if some scientific student 

 or literary man of about equal knowledge of the subject had come 

 forward to have his say. 



In favor of Darwinism there is this to be said, that it deals with 

 verce caitsce. It points to certain natural laws or conditions that visi- 

 bly tend toward the variation of species, and it furnishes, in certain 

 cases, almost conclusive evidence of the descent of different types from 

 a common ancestral form. What, it may be asked, has theology done to 

 render the world of organic forms intelligible to us ? All the talk we now 

 hear about a plan of creation and divine ideals is simply an attempt to 

 give a theological complexion to facts that science has discovered, and 

 that are found to be incongruous with the rude conception of creation 

 hitherto current. In company with Darwin and Spencer we feel that 

 we are at least on the road to sound and exact knowledge of the pro- 

 cesses of development, to an understanding of how what is came to be 

 as it is. In company with the theologian we quickly realize the hol- 

 low and formal character of the explanations he tenders. Except 

 when he openly borrows the language and theories of science, he has 

 absolutely nothing to tell us that our intellectual faculties can appro- 

 priate. If theology had a theory of the universe capable of entering 

 into serious competition with the theory of evolution, then no doubt 



