XII.J THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 291 



evolve from it, under suitable conditions, all the various 

 forms it subsequently assumes. And this power having 

 been conferred by God in the first instance, and those laws 

 and powers having been instituted by Him, through the 

 action of which the suitable conditions are supplied, He is 

 said in this lower sense to create such various subsequent 

 forms. This is the natural action of God in the physical 

 world, as distinguished from His direct, or, as it may be 

 here called, supernatural action. 



In yet a third sense, the word " Creation " may be more 

 or less improperly applied to the construction of any com- 

 plex formation or state by a voluntary self-conscious being 

 who makes use of the powers and laws wliich God has 

 imposed, as when a man is spoken of as the creator of 

 a museum, or of " his own fortune," &c. Such action of a 

 created conscious intelligence is purely natural,, but more 

 than physical, and may be conveniently spoken of as 

 hyperphysical. 



We have thus (1) direct or supernatural action ; (2) phy- 

 sical action ; and (3) hyperphysical action — the last two 

 belonging both to the order of nature.^ Neither the phy- 

 sical nor the hyperphysical actions, however, exclude the 

 idea of the Divine concurrence, and with every consistent 

 theist that idea is necessarily included- Dr. Asa Gray has 

 given expression to this.- He says, " Agreeing that plants 

 and animals were produced by Omnipotent fiat, does not 

 exclude the idea of natural order and what we call 

 secondary causes. The record of the fiat — ' Let the earth 



^ The phrase "order of nature" is not here used in its theological sense 

 as distinguished from the "order of grace," but as a term, here convenient, 

 to denote actions not due to direct and immediate Divine intervention. 



'•^ "A Free Examination of Darwin's Treatise," p. 29, reprinted from the 

 Atlantic Monthly for July, August, and October, 1860. 



u 2 



