Contemporary Evolution. 



which otherwise might perhaps find her acceptable to 

 their mental states, and to destroy the belief of others 

 who, from a very distinct cause, may be specially sus- 

 ceptible to such influence. Hence there seems but little 

 reason to expect that the existing wide-spread connection 

 between familiarity with physical science and disbelief in 

 Christianity will, for a considerable period, diminish to 

 anticipate, that is, that a movement which has been 

 gradually growing in strength for six hundred years is 

 likely soon to be arrested. So far, then, the scientific 

 aspect of contemporary evolution appears hostile to the 

 growth and influence of the Church. Yet we may find 

 hereafter (when we have considered the second cause) 

 compensating actions leading to results quite opposite to 

 those which have as yet appeared. 



The second cause of hostility was stated to be " the 

 special character of some physical science teaching" 



Physical science occupies itself with the phenomenal 

 universe as far as accessible to our senses, the collocations 

 of causes in the visible world, together with the laws of 

 their action in short, with the co-existences and suc- 

 cessions of phenomena, from mathematics and sidereal 

 astronomy to biology and sociology.* 



* Mr. G. H. Lewes (" Problems of Life and Mind ") professes to 

 embrace "metaphysics" within the range of science. He does so, 

 however, merely by calling " metaphysical " certain physical concep- 

 tions by which phenomena are mentally connected in scientific minds, 



