SKETCH OF LIFE AND WORK 29 



plan of their creation." His religious views, too, un- 

 doubtedly deep and sincere, were quite in harmony 

 with his views as to the creation of species. He 

 saw God everywhere iji nature ; and as his scientific 

 knowledge deepened and widened, the more did the 

 Creative Mind reveal itself to him in intelligent adapta- 

 tion and design for the accomplishment of specific ends. 

 Everything, as it existed, was to him the direct result 

 of an original forth-putting of Creative Power and 

 design, while his reverence for that Power increased 

 as his scientific knowledge extended and deepened. 

 Although the form of his religious belief, like the form 

 of his poetry, was very much that of the preceding 

 century, its reality and intensity were of his time, and 

 peculiarly his own individually. Would his restricted 

 scientific views as to species, with his form of religious 

 belief, have prevented him from accepting the Dar- 

 winian theories of evolution and natural selection ? 

 Would he have been able, with his ardent love of 

 truth and his capacity for clear insight into nature, to 

 accept the Darwinian theory of evolutionary progres- 

 sive creation in place of the view that all things were 

 made at a beginning out of nothing, each species, age 

 after age, simply reproducing itself, although subject 

 to much and constant variation within its specific 

 limitations ? 



It is not improbable that he would have got entirely 

 over the then existing wall of separation between the 

 past and the present of all scientific systems. Indeed, 

 notwithstanding his views as to species indicated in the 



