306 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



The various extracts given show clearly how far " evolu- 

 tion " is from any necessary opposition to the most ortho- 

 dox theology. The same may be said of spontaneous 

 generation. The most recent doctrine, lately advocated 

 by Dr. H. Charlton Bastian, 1 teaches that matter exists in 

 two different states, the crystalline (or statical) and the 

 colloidal (or dynamical) conditions. It also teaches that 

 colloidal matter, when exposed to certain conditions, pre- 

 sents the phenomena of life, and that it can be formed 

 from crystalline matter, and thus that the prima mater ia 

 of which these are diverse forms contains potentially 

 all the multitudinous kinds of animal and vegetable ex- 

 istence. This theory moreover quite harmonizes with the 

 views here advocated, for just as crystalline matter builds 

 itself, under suitable conditions, along certain definite lines, 

 so analogously colloidal matter has its definite lines and 

 directions of development. Such matter is not collected hi 

 haphazard, accidental aggregations, but evolves according 

 to its proper laws and special properties. 



The perfect orthodoxy of these views is unquestionable. 

 Nothing is plainer from the venerable writers quoted, as 

 well as from a mass of other authorities, than that " the 

 supernatural " is not to be looked for or expected in the 

 sphere of mere nature. For this statement there is a 

 general consensus of theological authority. 



The teaching which the author has received is, that God 

 is inscrutable and incomprehensible to us from the infinity 



1 See Nature, June and July, 1 870. Those who, like Professors Huxley 

 and Tyndall, do not accept his conclusions, none the less agree with him 

 in principle, though they limit the evolution of the organic world from 

 the inorganic to a very remote period of the world's history. (See 

 Professor Huxley's address to the British Association at Liverpool, 

 1870, p. 17.) 



