RELIGION AND THE DOCTRINE OF EVOLUTION 243 



be, and that we shall have to consider afterward, to the teachings of 

 revelation. Why, then, should religious men, independently of its rela- 

 tion to revelation, shrink from it, as very many unquestionably do ? 

 The reason is that, while this doctrine leaves the truth of the existence 

 and supremacy of God exactly where it was, it cuts away, or appears 

 to cut away, some of the main arguments for that truth. 



Now, in regard to the arguments whereby we have been accus- 

 tomed to prove or to corroborate the existence of a Supreme Being, it 

 is plain that, to take these arguments away, or to make it impossible to 

 use them, is not to disprove or take away the truth itself. We find 

 every day instances of men resting their faith in a truth on some 

 grounds which we know to be untenable, and we see what a terrible 

 trial it sometimes is when they find out that this is so, and know not 

 as yet on what other ground they are to take their stand. And some 

 men succumb in the trial, and lose their faith, together with the argu- 

 ment which has hitherto supported it. But the truth still stands, in 

 spite of the failure of some to keep their belief in it, and in spite of 

 the impossibility of supporting it by the old arguments. 



And, when men have become accustomed to rest their belief on new 

 grounds, the loss of the old arguments is never found to be a very 

 serious matter. Belief in revelation has been shaken again and again 

 by this very increase of knowledge. It was unquestionably a dreadful 

 blow to many in the days of Galileo to find that the language of the 

 Bible in regard to the movement of the earth and sun was not scientifi- 

 cally correct. It was a dreadful blow to many in the days of the 

 Reformation to find that they had been misled by what they believed 

 to be an infallible Church. 



Such shocks to faith try the mettle of men's moral and spiritual 

 convictions, and they often refuse altogether to hold what they can no 

 longer establish by the arguments which have hitherto been to them 

 the decisive, perhaps the sole decisive, proofs. 



And yet, in spite of these shocks, belief in revelation is strong still 

 in men's souls, and is clearly not yet going to quit the world. 



But let us go on to consider how far it is true that the arguments 

 which have hitherto been regarded as proving the existence of a 

 Supreme Creator are really affected very gravely by this doctrine of 

 evolution. 



The main argument, which at first appears to be thus set aside, is 

 that which is founded on the mai-ks of design, and which is worked 

 out in his own way with marvelous skill by Paley in his " Natural 

 Theology." Paley's argument rests, as is well known, on the evidence 

 of design in created things, and these evidences he chiefly finds in the 

 framework of organized living creatures. He traces with much most 

 interesting detail the many marvelous contrivances by which animals 

 of various kinds are adapted to the circumstances in which they 

 are to live, the mechanism which enables them to obtain their food, to 



