220 NO STRUGGLE NO SELECTION 



of the material universe, and dismisses it into the 

 void of space with the intimation that, having served 

 its provisional purpose, and survived its usefulness, it 

 need not return. The truth is that his contemplation 

 of the immensity of the material universe made the 

 conception of a Personal God too big for his unspiritual 

 nature to receive. There is but one argument of 

 Hackel pertinent to my present object which I need 

 place before the reader. He expatiates upon the 

 millions, nay, the hundreds of millions of years that 

 have elapsed since the germs of life first appeared 

 upon the surface of the earth, and upon the succession 

 of geological aeons that have been required to produce 

 the forms of life at present inhabiting the globe, and 

 asks if we can entertain the belief that the grand 

 procession of ever-changing animal and vegetable forms 

 throughout the aeons was but a preparation of the 

 earth to be the habitat of a creature so contemptible 

 as man. I think higher of man and his destiny than 

 does the German scientist. I think that such pre- 

 paration for human life was not unworthy of the Great 

 Architect. I, too, take refuge in the immensity of the 

 material universe, and think of the innumerable solar 

 orbs that were the centres of planetary systems 

 illuminated by their rays, that now accomplish their 

 revolutions, dead and dark, their fires for ever ex- 

 tinguished. Doubtless each of these black masses 

 burned like the sun in our heavens for hundreds of 

 millions of years before its heat began to wane and its 

 light to die out. When I think of the Intelligence 



