THEISTIC AND ATHEISTIC EVOLUTION 21 



LECTURE II 



(February 14, 1907) 



THEISTIC AND ATHEISTIC EVOLUTION EVOLUTION 

 AND DARWINISM 



LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 



I must ask the favour of your closest attention 

 this evening, because my present subject is both 

 difficult and dry. I do not intend to describe 

 to you in glowing colours the theistic theory of life 

 with its exalted idea of God, which forms the 

 highest and noblest object of human knowledge, 

 nor do I propose to appeal to your emotions and to 

 impress upon you the advantages possessed by 

 Christianity, in virtue of the doctrine of immortality, 

 over the depressing monistic theory, according to 

 which death ends everything for us, and we continue 

 to live only in the atoms which once made up our 

 mortal bodies. I wish rather to appeal to your 

 intellect, and to try to lay clearly before you the 

 most important conceptions, which are often con 

 fused with one another by those who discuss the 

 doctrine of evolution. For this purpose I must 

 refer first to the philosophical doctrine of evolution, 



