REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSION. 389 



upon the history narrated in the opening book of 

 Genesis." 1 



In other words, Evolution is not opposed to revela- 

 tion, but to certain interpretations of what some have 

 imagined to be revealed truths. It is not opposed 

 to the dogmas of the Church, but to the opinions of 

 certain individual exponents of Dogma, who would 

 have us believe that their views of the Inspired Rec- 

 ord are the veritable expressions of Divine truth." 



To say that Evolution is agnostic or atheistic in 

 tendency, if not in fact, is to betray a lamentable 

 ignorance of what it actually teaches, and to display 

 a singular incapacity for comprehending the relation 

 of a scientific induction to a philosophical or, more 

 truthfully, an anti-philosophical system. The sim- 

 ple assertion of Haeckel and his school, that Evolu- 

 tion implies the monistic or mechanical theory of 

 the universe, proves nothing, for assertion is not 

 proof. Rather should it be affirmed that Evolution, 

 in so far as it is true, makes for religion and Dogma ; 

 because it must needs be that a true theory of the 

 origin and development of things must, when prop- 

 erly understood and applied, both strengthen and 

 illustrate the teachings of faith. " When from the 



lu Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," vol. I, p. 556. 



2 Lamarck, with keen philosophic insight, thus expresses 

 himself in his " Philosophic Zoologique," torn. I, p. 56 : " Sans 

 doute rien n'existe que par la volontd du sublime Auteur de toutes 

 choses, mais pouvons-nous lui assigner des regies dans 1 'execu- 

 tion de sa volonte et fixer la mode qu'il a suivi a cet egard ? 

 Assurement, quelle qu'ait etc sa volonte", I'immensite de sa 

 puissance est toujours la meme, et de quelque maniere que se soit 

 executee cette volonte" supreme, rien n'en peut diminuer la 

 grandeur. 1 ' 



