DARWIN IMPLIES MIRACLE. 



377 



however, that miracles have been exterminated, and can 

 never be revived ; so Darwin is to prevail. Everything 

 is accounted for, and we may now fully accept, and take 

 comfort in, the widely disseminated cosmic conception. 

 Only it will be found that before anyone can possibly bring 

 himself to accept these new conclusions, he must positively 

 determine not only to believe many statements in favour of 

 purely physical views, although they can be proved to be 

 untrue, and must repose implicit faith in the dicta of Strauss 

 and other new authorities who being quite positive they are 

 right in every point, naturally refuse to supply to unbe- 

 lievers full and sufficient reasons for the faith they profess. 



Strauss calls Mr. Darwin as a witness in favour of the 

 new cosmic conception, and applauds him as the exter- 

 minator of miracles. But Mr. Darwin does not dispense 

 with miracle. His doctrine implies miracle, and of a con- 

 summate kind. Mr. Darwin does not assert the gradual 

 transition from the non-living to the living. He does not 

 attempt to bridge the chasm between them. His enquiries 

 do not begin until long after the first life had appeared. 

 Up to this very day no facts have been discovered which in 

 any way help us, even in imagination, to bridge the chasm 

 from non-living to living, which must at any rate have 

 existed at a very early period of our planetary history. 

 Mr. Darwin's primordial living matter is assumed to have 

 appeared. How, we are not told. Why, we cannot sur- 

 mise. Notwithstanding all the assertions of Strauss and 

 other authorities, faith, with its miracle, can no more be 

 ignored by the reasonable men of these days than it could 

 have been dispensed with by those who lived centuries ago. 

 Knowledge has increased ; facts have accumulated ; but, so 



