MODERN EVOLUTION. 



247 



To our own time the increase of knowledge con- 

 cerning the myriads of sidereal systems which re- 

 volve through space is not held to be destructive 

 of those dogmas, but held, rather, to supply material 

 for speculation as to the probable extension of Di- 

 vine paternal government throughout the universe. 

 And, although, as coming nearer home, with conse- 

 quent greater chance of intrusion of elements of 

 friction, the like applies to the discoveries of geology. 

 Apart from intellectual apathy, which explains much, 

 the impact of these discoveries on traditional beliefs 

 was softened by the buffers which a moderating 

 spirit of criticism interposed in the shape of super- 

 ficial " reconciliations " emptying the old cosmogony 

 of all its poetry, and therefore of its value as a key 

 to primitive ideas, and converting it into bastard 

 science. Thus a temporary, because artificial, unity, 

 was set up. But with the evidence supplied by 

 study of the ancient life whose remains are imbedded 

 in the fossil-yielding strata, that unity is shivered. 

 In a Scripture that " cannot be broken " there was 

 read the story of conflict and death aeons before man 

 appeared. Between this record, and that which 

 spoke of pain and death as the consequences of 

 man's disobedience to the frivolous prohibition of 

 an anthropomorphic God, there is no possible recon- 

 ciliation. 



To the evidence from fossiliferous beds was 

 added evidence from old river-gravels and limestone 

 caverns. The relics extracted from the stalagmitic 



