2 3 o MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



^ 4. We have already seen that it results from this 

 that material nature cannot fully reveal God to us. 

 Our present knowledge of nature is, as we too well 

 know, relatively very small. But even if we could 

 know, and have distinctly before our minds every 

 fact and law of the whole universe and all their rela 

 tions and interactions, we should on the whole have 

 only one set of possibilities out of an infinite number ; 

 and, as we have already seen, the manifestation of 

 God would be in a manner which must be in many 

 respects the converse of His essential properties. A 

 photograph represents to me a friend, but it is not 

 the friend himself; a building represents an archi 

 tect, but it is not the architect. It would seem as if 

 in many current arguments respecting agnosticism 

 these simple principles were altogether overlooked. 



^5. Creation was not an instantaneous process, but 



extended through periods of vast duration. In every 

 stage we may rest assured that God, like a wise 

 builder, used every previous course as a support for 

 the next ; that He built each succeeding storey of the 

 wonderful edifice on that previously prepared for it ; 

 and that His plan developed itself as His work pro 

 ceeded. So far, there must have been evolution and 

 development. But the attempt to narrow this plan 

 to any one little principle that we have laboriously 

 worked out must be futile. Such analogies, even if 

 well founded in nature, can only be partial and 

 limited in application, and nothing can be really 



