EDITOR'S TABLE. 



841 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



SIR WILLIAM DAWSON OK EVOLUTION. 



SIR WILLIAM DAWSON, the well- 

 known Canadian geologist, has 

 brought out, under the auspices of the 

 Religious Tract Society of London, Eng- 

 land, a work entitled Modern Ideas of 

 Evolution as related to Revelation and 

 Science. The title of the book, we must 

 say at the outset, seems to us a little 

 peculiar. Any idea of evolution (as the 

 term is now understood) must, if con- 

 sidered at all, be considered in relation 

 to science ; but how to consider it in 

 relation to revelation is not, to our 

 mind, easy to understand. How are 

 ideas of evolution to be brought into 

 direct relation with revelation as a sub- 

 stantive fact? If revelation is a sub- 

 stantive, self-evident fact, then there is 

 no use in bringing any ideas of evolu- 

 tion into comparison with it. The Arab 

 leader who burned the library at Alexan- 

 dria did not want to compare any of the 

 books contained therein with the Ko- 

 ran, but summarily said: "They either 

 agree with the Koran or disagree with 

 it. If they agree with it, they are su- 

 perfluous ; if they disagree with it, they 

 are noxious : in either case burn them." 

 In like manner, no one who reads the 

 laws of nature in the blaze of an all- 

 sufficient revelation will want any other 

 light. Had Sir William spoken in the 

 title of his book of bringing " ideas of 

 evolution" into relation with '■'•ideas of 

 revelation," the proposition would have 

 appeared a more hopeful one, and would 

 have contained a certain suggestion of 

 fair play; but to bring mere "ideas" 

 on the one side into direct contact with 

 the most absolute and commanding re- 

 ality on the other, seems — well, not 

 quite the right thing to do. Give the 

 " ideas of evolution " a chance ; let 

 there be something to " umpire." 



Sir William Dawson has written this 

 book for a select circle of readers — a 



wide one possibly, but select neverthe- 

 less — readers who appreciate such a de- 

 scription of Darwin as the following : 

 "Darwin, as he sits in marble on the 

 staircase of the British Museum, repre- 

 sents a noble figure, made in the image 

 of God, and capable of grasping men- 

 tally the heaven above as well as the 

 earth beneath. As he appears in his 

 recent biography, we see the same man 

 paralyzed by a spiritual atrophy, blinded 

 and shut up in prison and chained to 

 the mill of a materialistic philosophy 

 where, like a captive Samson, he is 

 doomed to grind all that is fair and 

 beautiful in nature into a dry and form- 

 less dust." It is needless to say that a 

 reader at aH accustomed to scientific 

 method would wish to know exactly 

 what is meant by ability to " grasp 

 mentally the heaven above as well as 

 the earth beneath." Darwin, it seems 

 to be admitted, grasped the earth be- 

 neath : in order to grasp the heaven 

 above — interpreting tbe words in a nat- 

 ural sense — he would have had to be an 

 astronomer in addition to being a great 

 biologist and naturalist. The writer, 

 however, does not use the words in 

 their natural sense : by the " heaven 

 above" he means some supernatural 

 order of facts ; but could he, as a scien- 

 tific man, tell us of any one who to his 

 positive knowledge had " grasped the 

 heaven above" in that sense? When 

 Darwin grasped the earth beneath he 

 could tell us what he grasped, and the 

 world is vastly the richer to-day for the 

 positive knowledge imparted by him in 

 regard to terrestrial facts. But could 

 Sir William Dawson himself enrich the 

 world by imparting what he has grasped 

 of "the heaven ab»ve " ? What does 

 he know about it that he can communi- 

 cate in distinct speech ? If he has any 

 such information, it would vastly surpass 

 in interest anything he can tell us about 



