248 DABWINIANA. 



apparatus of which is perfected or evolved in the course 

 of Nature a common but a crude state of mind on 

 the part of those who believe that there is any origi- 

 nating purpose in the universe, and one which, we are 

 sure, Dr. Dawson does not share as respects the mate- 

 rial world until he reaches the organic kingdoms, and 

 there, possibly, because he sees man at the head of 

 them of them, while above them. However that 

 may be, the position which Dr. Dawson chooses to oc- 

 cupy is not left uncertain. After concluding, substan- 

 tially, that those "evolutionists" who exclude design 

 from Nature thereby exclude theism, which nobody 

 will deny, he proceeds (on page 348) to give his opin- 

 ion that the " evolutionism which professes to have a 

 creator somewhere behind it. ... is practically athe- 

 istic," and, " if possible, more unphilosophical than 

 that which professes to set out from absolute and eter- 

 nal nonentity," etc. 



There are some sentences which might lead one to 

 suppose that Dr. Dawson himself admitted of an evo- 

 lution " with a creator somewhere behind it." He 

 offers it (page 320) as a permissible alternative that 

 even man " has been created mediately by the opera- 

 tion of forces also concerned in the production of other 

 animals ; " concedes that a just theory " does not even 

 exclude evolution or derivation, to a certain extent " 

 (page 341) ; and that " a modern man of science " may 

 safely hold "that all things have been produced by 

 the Supreme Creative Will, acting either directly or 

 through the agency of the forces and materials of his 

 own production." "Well, if this be so, why denounce 

 the modern man of science so severely upon the other 



