iSo MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



out of it, and if we could gather together all that goes up 

 the chimney and all that remains in the grate of a thoroughly 

 burnt coal fire, we should find ourselves in possession of a 

 quantity of carbonic acid, water, ammonia, and mineral 

 matters exactly equal in weight to the coal. But these 

 are the very matters with which Nature supplied the club- 

 mosses which made coal She is paid back principal and 

 interest at the same time j and she straightway invest 

 carbonic acid, the water, and the ammonia in new forms of 

 life, feeding with them the plants that now live. Thrifty 

 Nature, surely ! no prodigal, but the most notable of house- 

 * keepers, 1 



All this is true and well told ; but who is Nature, 

 this goddess, who, since the far-distant Carboniferous 

 age, has been planning for man ? Is this not another 

 name for that Almighty Maker who foresaw and 

 arranged all things for H is people * before the founda 

 tion of the world * ? If Huxley did not assure us 

 that he is an agnostic, we might suspect him from 

 this passage to be a devout theist, and even an 

 orthodox Calvinist, 



It is plain that l Nature in such a connection re 

 presents either a poetical fiction, a superstitious 

 fancy, or an intelligent creative mind It is further 

 evident that such creative mind must be in harmony 

 with that of man, though vastly greater in its scope 

 and grasp in time and space. This conclusion might 

 be strengthened by many other examples of the 

 mute prophecies of past geological periods. 



Even the numerical relations observed in nature 



1 Contemporary Review t 1871^ 



