310 



THE GENESIS OF SPECIES 



[Chaf. 



probationary action. A moral element enters into the 

 acceptance of tliat system. 



And so it is Avitli natural religion, with tliose religious 

 ideas — God, Creation, and ^lorality — which are anterior 

 to revelation and repose upon reason. Here again it 

 evidently has not been the intention of the Creator to 

 make the evidence of His existence so plain that its non- 

 recognition would be the mark of intellectual incapacity. 

 Conviction, as to theism, is not forced upon men as is the 

 conviction of the existence of the sun at noon-day.^ A 

 moral element enters also here, and the analogy which 

 exists in this resjDect between Christianity and theism 

 speaks eloquently (»f their primary derivation from onv. 

 common author.- 



Thus we miglit expect that it would be a vain task to 

 seek anywhere in nature for evidence of Divine action, 

 such that no one could sanely deny it. God will not allow 

 Himself to be caught at the bottom of any man's crucible, 

 or yield Himself to the experiments of gross-minded and 

 irreverent inipiirers. The natural, like the supernatural, 

 revelation appeals to the ivhole of man's mental nature and 

 not to the reason alone? 



None, therefore, need feel disappointed that evidence of 



^ Hy this it is not, of course, meant to deny that the existence of God 

 can be demonstrated so as to demand the assent of the intellect taken, so 

 to si>eak, by itself. 



- It is reasonable to Itelieve that, in matters of belief as well as of 

 practice, (Jod has not tliought tit to annihilate the free will of man, but has 

 jK-rmitted specniative ditliculties to exist as the trial and the discijdine of 

 .sharp and subtle intellects, as He has permitted moral temptations to form 

 the trial and the discijdine of strong and eager passions." — Maxsel, 

 Bampttm Lectures, 4th edition, j). 1(56. 



3 See some excellent remarks in the Rev. Dr. Newman's Parochial 

 Sermons— the new edition (1869), vol. i. p. 211. 



