Scientific Evolution. 161 



But the widespread reception of the doctrine of organic 

 evolution aids Christianity in yet two other ways. In 

 the first place, it aids it by making more clearly manifest 

 than before to those who are neither theologians nor 

 philosophers the extreme importance of the Christian 

 dogma of creation, both by the fatal consequences 

 erroneously deduced from evolution by those who believe 

 its affirmation to be equivalent to the denial of creation, 

 and by the enthusiastic reception given to evolution by 

 Darwin, Huxley, Haeckel, and others, expressly on the 

 very ground of the supposed refutation by it of that 

 cardinal Christian doctrine. Secondly, it aids Christianity 

 by demonstrating how hopeless is the impossibility of 

 refuting that dogma by any advance of physical science ; 

 for the most hostile efforts of the most skilled assailants 

 have to their despite resulted in the decorating and fill- 

 ing in as it were, of the Christian doctrine of creation, 

 instead of ending in its hoped for overthrow. For, 

 as will be urged in the next chapter, the congruity of 

 creative action with the universe, as manifested in our 

 own free will, is made plain to us on d priori grounds ; 

 and, similarly, from a consideration of the nature of the 

 First Cause, we are compelled to regard all existing forms, 

 organic and inorganic, as responding to prototypal ideas 

 in God.* With these conceptions once accepted, we 



* See " Lessons from Nature," pp. 275 and 279. 



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