226 EVOLUTION AND DOGMA. 



poetical fiction ; and that the term is to be inter- 

 preted in a metaphorical and not in a literal sense. 



With naturalists, however, and philosophers, who 

 are supposed to employ a more exact terminology, 

 such a figurative use of language cannot fail, with 

 the generality of readers, to be both misleading and 

 mischievous. 



Darwin, and writers of his school, are continually 

 telling us of the useful variety of animals and plants 

 given to man " by the hand of ' nature,' " and recount- 

 ing how " 'nature' selects only 'for the good of the 

 being which she tends,' " how " every selected char- 

 acter is fully exercised by her," and how " natural 

 selection entails divergence of character and ex- 

 tinction of less improved forms." Huxley loves to 

 dilate on how " ' nature ' supplied the club-mosses 

 which made coal," how she invests carbonic acid, 

 water, and ammonia " in new forms of life, feeding 

 with them the plants that now live." He assures 

 us that " thrifty ' nature,' surely no prodigal ! but 

 the most notable of housekeepers," is "never in a 

 hurry, and seems to have had always before her 

 eyes the adage, ' Keep a thing long enough, and you 

 will find a use for it ; ' " that " it was only the other 

 day, so to speak, that she turned a new creature 

 out of her workshop, who, by degrees, acquired 

 sufficient wits to make a fire." 



Nature and God. 



Now, there is no doubt but that all these quota- 

 tions can be understood in an orthodox sense, but 

 the fact, nevertheless, remains, that they are not 



