8 Darwinism and Other Essays. 



pursuing this its legitimate business, science does 

 not trench on the province of theology in any 

 way, and there is no conceivable occasion for any 

 conflict between the two. From this and the pre- 

 vious considerations, taken together, it follows not 

 only that such explanations as are contained in 

 the Newtonian and Darwinian theories are en- 

 tirely consistent with theism, but also that they 

 are the only kind of explanations with which sci- 

 ence can properly concern itself at all. To say 

 that complex organisms were directly created by 

 the Deity is to make an assertion which, however 

 true in a theistic sense, is utterly barren. It is 

 of no profit to theism, which must be taken for 

 granted before the assertion can be made ; and it 

 is of no profit to science, which must still ask its 

 question, " How ? " 1 



Setting aside, then, the theological criticism as 

 irrelevant to the question really at stake, the Dar- 

 winian theory, like the Newtonian, remains to be 

 tested by strictly scientific considerations. In the 

 more recent instance, as in the earlier, the rel- 

 evant question is how far the course of events as 

 sketched by the hypothesis agrees with the ob- 



1 I have repeated this argument, and surrounded it with its proper 

 philosophical context, in The Idea of God, as affected by Modern 

 Knowledge, section VII. 



