XII.] THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 275 



It must once more be insisted on, that, though man is 

 indeed compelled to conceive of God in human terms, and 

 to speak of Him by epithets objectively false, from their 

 hopeless inadequacy, yet nevertheless the Christian thinker 

 declares that inadequacy in the strongest manner, and vehe- 

 mently rejects from his idea of God all terms distinctly im- 

 plying infirmity or limitation. 



Now, Mr. Darwin speaks as if all who believe in the 

 Almighty were compelled to accept as really applicable to 

 the Deity conceptions which affirm limits and imperfections. 

 Thus he says : " Can it be reasonably maintained that the 

 Creator intentionally ordered " " that certain fragments of 

 rock should assume certain shapes, so that the builder 

 might erect his edifice ? " 



Why, surely every theist must maintain that in the first 

 foundation of the universe the primary and absolute crea- 

 tion God saw and knew every purpose which every atom 

 and particle of matter should ever subserve in all suns and 

 systems, and throughout all coming aeons of time. It is 

 almost incredible, but nevertheless it seems necessary to 

 think that the difficulty thus proposed rests on a sort of 

 notion that amid the boundless profusion of Nature there 

 is too much for God to superintend ; that the number of 

 objects is too great for an infinite and omnipresent being 

 to attend singly to each and all in their due proportions and 

 needs ! In the same way Mr. Darwin asks whether God can 

 have ordered the race variations referred to in the passage 

 last quoted, for the considerations therein mentioned. To 

 this it may be at once replied that even man often has 

 several distinct intentions and motives for a single action, 

 and the theist has no difficulty in supposing that, out of an 

 infinite number of motives, the motive mentioned in each 

 case may have been an exceedingly subordinate one. The 

 theist, .though properly attributing to God what, for want 

 of a better term, he calls " purpose " and " design," yet 



