XII.] THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 315 



secondary causes, " by means of slow physical and organic 

 operations through long ages, is not the less clearly recog- 

 nizable as the act of all-adaptive Mind, because we have 

 abandoned the old error of supposing it to be the result l 

 of a primary, direct, and sudden act of creational construc- 

 tion." .... "The succession of species by continuously 

 operating law is not necessarily a ' blind operation.' Such 

 law, however designed in the properties and successions 

 of natural objects, intimates, nevertheless, a preconceived 

 progress. Organisms may be evolved in orderly succes- 

 sion, stage after stage, towards a foreseen goal, and the 

 broad features of the course may still show the unmistake- 

 able impress of Divine volition," 



Mr. Wallace 2 declares that the opponents of evolution 

 present a less elevated view of the Almighty, He says : 

 " Why should we suppose the machine too complicated to 

 have been designed by the Creator so complete that it 

 would necessarily work out harmonious results ? The 

 theory of ' continual interference ' is a limitation of the 

 Creator's power. It assumes that He could not work by 

 pure law in the organic, as He has done in the inorganic 

 world." Thus, then, there is not only no necessary anta- 

 gonism between the general theory of " evolution " and a 

 Divine action, but the compatibility between the two is 

 recognized by naturalists who cannot be suspected of any 

 strong theological bias. 3 



1 The Professor doubtless means the direct and immediate result. (See 

 Trans. Zool. Soc. vol. v. p. 90.) 



2 "Natural Selection," p. 280. 



3 "That matter is governed by mind, that the contrivances and elabora- 

 tions of the universe are the products of intelligence, are propositions 

 which are quite unshaken, whether we regard these contrivances as the 

 results of a single momentary exercise of the will, or of a slow, consistent, 



