XII.] THEOLOGY AND EVOLUTION. 87 



nature, and the intellect is not (any more than we should 

 a priori expect it to be) exempted from taking part in the 

 probationary trial. A moral element enters into the ac- 

 ceptance of that system. 



And so with natural religion with those ideas of the 

 supernatural, viz., God, Creation, and Morality, which are 

 anterior to revelation and repose upon reason. Here, again, 

 it evidently has not been the intention of the Creator to 

 make the evidence of His existence so plain that its non- 

 recognition would be the mark of intellectual incapacity. 

 Conviction, as to theism, is not forced upon men as is the 

 conviction of the existence of the sun at noonday. 41 A 

 moral element also enters here, and the analogy there is in 

 this respect between Christianity and theism speaks elo- 

 quently of their primary derivation from one common 

 author. ' 



Thus we might expect that it would be a vain task to 

 seek anywhere in Nature for evidence of Divine action, 

 such that no one could sanely deny it. God will not allow 

 Himself to be caught at the bottom of any man's crucible, 

 or yield Himself to the experiments of gross-minded and 

 irreverent inquirers. The natural, like the supernatural, 

 revelation appeals to the whole of man's mental nature and 

 not to the reason alone. 



None, therefore, need feel disappointed that evidence 

 of the direct action of the first cause in merely natural phe- 

 nomena ever eludes our grasp ; for assuredly those same 

 phenomena will ever remain fundamentally inexplicable by 

 physical science alone. 



There being, then, nothing in either authority or reason 



41 But this is not, of course, meant to deny that the existence of God 

 can be demonstrated, so as to demand the assent of the intellect taken, 

 so to speak, by itself. 



42 See some excellent remarks in the Rev. Dr. Newman's Parochial 

 Sermons the new edition (1869), vol. i., p. 211. 



