1874.} ( 229 ) 
NOTICES .OF BOOKS: 
Darwinism and Design; or Creation by Evolution. By GrorGE 
St. Crarr, F.G.S., M.A.1.A., &c. London: Hodder and 
Stoughton. 1873. 
WE have here yet another attempt at a reconciliation of theology 
with science; but it is one which differs in many respects from 
all that have gone before it. The doctrine of evolution, as ex- 
plained by Spencer and Darwin, is accepted in its entirety, and 
no objection is made to the most extreme consequences which 
those authors deduce from it; but it is argued with much force 
and ingenuity that design, and the constant action of a Supreme 
Ruler, is not thereby rendered inconceivable or unnecessary. 
A condensed but exceedingly accurate and well-written account of 
the most recent views of evolution is given in the first part of 
the volume; and this is a great merit, seeing how incapable 
most theological writers are of avoiding either positive misrepre- 
sentation or a partial and one-sided statement of the teachings 
of evolutionists. The theological treatment of the question is, 
however, somewhat peculiar and heterodox, and we fear will not 
meet with a favourable acceptance from the religious world; 
and this may render Mr. St. Clair’s book less generally useful in 
reconciling the modern Christian mind to the teachings of 
Darwin than it might otherwise have been. A short account of 
the author’s mode of treating the subject, and of the peculiarities 
above referred to, may not be uninteresting. 
Throughout the book we meet with expressions and arguments 
which show us that the Deity or Supreme Ruler spoken of by the 
author is not the being to whom those terms are applied either 
in philosophy or religion. It is not the “Absolute” of the 
philosophers; it is not the ‘‘Almighty” and ‘‘ Omnipresent”’ 
deity of the Christian; but it is a being subject, like ourselves, 
to the laws of matter and motion,—having to recognise the 
“nature of things,” but having infinite knowledge which enables 
him to make use of the universe and its ‘‘necessary laws” so as 
to work out his own purposes. This view, which appears to us 
an impossible or at least an imperfect one, seems to have been 
adopted owing to the supposed ‘inconceivability”’ of the creation 
of matter out of nothing—an inconceivability which vanishes to 
any one who can thoroughly grasp the conception of matter as 
being essentially a complex set of forces and nothing else. To 
hold that these forces are eternal and self-existent, and that they 
produce by their varied interactions all the forms of dead matter, 
while an omniscient mind—equally eternal and self-existent— 
finds itself face to face with this matter and these forces which 
it can neither destroy nor originate, but only guide, is surely to 
VOL. IV. (N.S.) 2G 
