XII.] THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 261 



mally commit those who accept them to the assertion of 

 this belief. If, therefore, any theory of physical science 

 really conflicts with such an authoritative statement, its 

 importance to Christians is unquestionable. 



As, however, " creation " forms a part of " revelation," 

 and as " revelation " appeals for its acceptance to " reason," 

 which has to prepare a basis for it by an intelligent accept- 

 ance of theism on purely rational grounds, it is necessary 

 to start with a few words as to the reasonableness of belief 

 in God, which indeed are less superfluous than some read- 

 ers may perhaps imagine ; " a few words," because this is 

 not the place where the argument can be drawn out, but 

 only one or two hints given in reply to certain modern 

 objections. 



No better example perhaps can be taken, as a type of 

 these objections, than a passage in Mr. Herbert Spencer's 

 " First Principles." * This author constantly speaks of the 

 " ultimate cause of things " as " the unknowable," a term 

 singularly unfortunate, and, as Mr. James Martineau has 

 pointed out, 8 even self-contradictory : for that entity, the 



1 See 2d edit., p. 113. 



8 " Essays, Philosophical and Theological," Trubner & Co., First Se- 

 ries, 1866, p. 190. "Every relative disability may be read two ways. 

 A disqualification in the nature of thought for knowing x is, from the 

 other side, a disqualification in the nature of x from being known. To 

 say, then, that the First Cause is wholly removed from our apprehension 

 is not simply a disclaimer of faculty on our part : it is a charge of in- 

 ability against the First Cause too. The dictum about it is this : ' It is 

 a Being that may exist out of knowledge, but that is precluded from en- 

 tering within the sphere of knowledge.' We are told in one breath that 

 this Being must be in every sense ' perfect, complete, total including in 

 itself all power, and transcending all law ' (p. 38) ; and in another that 

 this perfect omnipotent One is totally incapable of revealing any one of 

 an infinite store of attributes. Need we point out the contradictions 

 which this position involves ? If you abide by it, you deny the Absolute 

 and Infinite in the very act of affirming it, for, in debarring the First 

 Cause from self-revelation, you impose a limit on its nature. And, in the 



