PROEM TO GENESIS. 631 



much biased in its favor, by what I conceive to be its relation to the 

 great argument of design.* 



Not that I share the horror with which some men of science ap- 

 pear to contemplate a multitude of what they term " sudden" acts of 

 creation. All things considered, a singular expression : but one, I 

 suppose, meaning the act which produces, in the region of nature, 

 something not related by an unbroken succession of measured and 

 equable stages to what has gone before it. But what has equality or 

 brevity of stage to do with the question how far the act is creative? 

 I fail to see, or indeed am somewhat disposed to deny, that the short 

 stage is less creative than the long, the single than the manifold, the 

 equable than the jointed or graduated stage. Evolution is, to me, 

 series with development. And like series in mathematics, whether 

 arithmetical or geometrical, it establishes ih things an unbroken pro- 

 gression ; it places each thing (if only it stand the test of ability to 

 live) in a distinct relation to every other thing, and makes each a wit- 

 ness to all that have preceded it, a prophecy of all that are to follow 

 it. It gives to the argument of design, now called the teleological 

 argument, at once a wider expansion, and an augmented tenacity and 

 solidity of tissue. But I must proceed. 



I find Mr. Huxley asserting that the things of science, with which 

 he is so splendidly conversant, are "susceptible of clear intellectual 

 comprehension " [P. S. M. p. 459), Is this rhetoric, or is it a formula of 

 philosophy ? If the latter, Avill it bear examination ? He pre-eminent- 

 ly understands the relations between those things which Nature offers 

 to his view ; but does he understand each thing in itself, or hoio the 

 last term but one in an evolutional series passes into and becomes the 

 last ? The seed may produce the tree, the tree the branch, the branch 

 the twig, the twig the leaf or flower ; but can we understand the 

 slightest mutation or growth of Nature in itself ? can we tell how 

 the twig passes into leaf or flower, one jot more than if the flower or 

 leaf, instead of coming from the twig, came directly from the tree or 

 from the seed ? 



I can not but trace some signs of haste in Professor Huxley's asser- 

 tion that, outside the province of science {ibid.), we have only imagi- 

 nation, hope, and ignorance. Not, as we shall presently see, that he Ls 

 one of those who rob mankind of the best and highest of their inherit- 

 ance, by denj-ing the reality of all but material objects. But the 

 statement is surely open to objection, as omitting or seeming to omit 

 from view the vast fields of knowledge only probable, which are not 

 of mere hope, nor of mere imagination, nor of mere ignorance ; 



* "Views like these, when formulated by religions instead of scientific thought, make 

 more of Divine Providence and fore-ordination, than of Divine intervention ; but perhaps 

 they are not the less theistical on that account." (From the very remarkable Lectures 

 of Professor Asa Gray on Natural Science and Religion, p. 77. Scribner, New York, 

 1880.) 



