24 PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 
cannot have come into existence with it; nor can they 
perish together; and, secondly, while the origin of life on 
the earth remains as evidence of discontinuity, it is impos- 
sible to believe that the evolutionary process is due to an 
uninterrupted original impulse, such as we must suppose 
would result from an effort in nature to evolve itself. And 
we must further believe that the mind which originated this 
gradual development of matter from the simple to the com- 
plex must be sufficiently powerful to direct the stupendous 
forces of nature; sufficiently intelligent to foresee their re- 
sults when set in motion; and sufficiently moral to have con- 
ceived the moral evolution of man. 
It is true, as Pantheists urge, that our only experience of 
mind is in connection with matter. But, so far as we 
know, mind is connected only with one kind of matter, 
called protoplasm, which cannot possibly exist throughout 
the Universe. Consequently, mind must either be absent 
from large portions of matter, or it must be associated with 
that matter in some way which quite transcends our experi- 
ence. So that we have no more experience of mind univers- 
ally distributed through matter than we have of mind dis 
tinct from matter. And the argument for Pantheism 
breaks down. 
Tue Purpose or EVOLUTION. 
I come now to another aspect of the problem. As years 
pass on, we shall, no doubt, know the story of evolution in 
much greater detail than we do now. Mistakes will be cor- 
rected, and many new facts will be discovered. But nothing | 
can alter its main outline, and a more complete knowledge 
will not make it more impressive. How it was brought 
about, and by what means it moves, are, perhaps, above our 
comprehension. What little we have learnt about these 
things is chiefly the work of three men—Sir Isaac Newton, 
Lord Kelvin, and Charles Darwin—Gravitation, Dissipation 
of Energy, and Selection—that is all we know at present. 
There still remains the question—‘‘ Why was the Universe 
called into existence?” What does it all mean? For, if 
the fundamental doctrine of Theism is established, it neces- 
sarily follows that the Universe exists for some purpose to- 
wards which evolution is working, and, so far as the earth 
is concerned, it seems possible that we may arrive at some 
conception of what that purpose is. 
We have already discovered that the physical evolution of 
the Solar System was followed, as soon as the earth was suffi- 
ciently cool, by the production of protoplasm and the 
