30U 



THE LJLyESlS OF SPECIES. 



[Chai', 



Tlie various extracts given show clearly how far " evolu- 

 tion " is from any necessary opposition to the most ortho- 

 dox tlieology. The same may be said of spontaneous 

 generation. The most recent doctrine, lately advocated 

 by Dr. If. Charlton Bastian,^ teaclies that matter exists in 

 two different states, the crystalline (or statical) and the 

 colloidal (or dynamical) conditions. It also teaches that 

 colloidal matter, when exposed to certain conditions, pre- 

 sents the phenomena of life, and that it can be formed 

 from crystalline matter, and thus that tlie prima materia 

 of which these are diverse forms contains potentially 

 all the multitudinous kinds of animal and vegetable ex- 

 istence. This theory moreover quite harmonizes with the 

 views here advocated, for just as crystalline matter builds 

 itself, under suitable conditions, along certain definite lines, 

 so analogously colloidal matter has its definite lines and 

 direcMons of development. Such matter is not C(jllected in 

 liai)hazard, accidental aggregations, but evolves according 

 to its proper laws and special properties. 



The i)erfect orthodoxy of these views is unquestionable. 

 Xc^thing is plainer from the venerable writers quoted, as 

 well as from amass of other authorities, than that "the 

 supernatural" is not to be looked for or expected in the 

 sphere of mere nature. For this statement there is a 

 •reneral consensus of theological authorit}'. 



The teaching which the author has received is, that God 

 is inscrutable and incomprehensible to us from the infinity 



^ Sec Xdhire, June and July, 1S70. Those wlio, likr ]'rofes.sors Huxley 

 ;iinl TyiKlall, tlo not accejtt hi.s conelusions, none the less agree with liini 

 in principle, thcmgh they limit the evolution of the organic world from 

 the inortranic to a ver}- remote i>eriod of the wftrht's history. (See 

 I'rotessor Tluxley's address to the British Association at Liverpool, 

 1870, p. 17.) 



