232 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



might by no means be able to divine the plan and 

 design of the Creator to be afterwards realised in the 

 vertebrate animals and in man. Thus both in 

 amount and in time the design and final cause in 

 nature would be very partially conceivable by him. 

 This is what the Bible means when it points to the 

 glory of God Himself as the final cause ; and we can 

 well imagine that this glory may shine with infinitely 

 greater effulgence before the minds of higher intelli 

 gences, or before our own minds in the future. 



The same consideration helps us to understand 

 how we may be disposed even to condemn as im 

 perfect the arrangements of nature. The time was 

 when ferocious wild beasts were the lords of the 

 earth ; but they and their doings arc to be judged by 

 the laws of their own order, not by the higher ideal 

 of our sentiments or of the nature of God, and their 

 uses are to be gauged by the future that \v&amp;gt;s to 

 succeed them as well as by their own timeA Man 

 himselJias faijed so far to realise the highesVldeal 

 embodied in his nature and capacities ; but God has 

 farther designs with humanity, to be realised in the 

 &amp;lt; manifestation of the sons of God^ We may thus 

 learn that, while God gives life, there is a struggle, not 

 for existence, but against evil ; and we may have 

 faith that the fit will survive in the highest and best 

 sense of an approving conscience now and in the 

 coming glory hereafter. Thus far our own conscience 

 and natural religion may carry us. 



