422 EVOLU TION A ND D O G MA . 



and grave reasons for thinking that He did not. 

 In the first place all prima facie evidence is against 

 it. It is contrary to the known analogy of the Cre- 

 ator's methods of work in other instances; contrary 

 to what is a rational conception of the Divine econ- 

 omy in the plan of creation. It is contrary also to 

 our ideas of God's wisdom and goodness ; for to 

 suppose that fossils are not the remains of forms 

 of life now extinct, to suppose that they were cre- 

 ated as we now find them, would be to suppose 

 that the Creator would have done something which 

 was specially designed to mislead and deceive us. 

 Against such a view we can assert what Suarez 

 affirms in another connection, that God would 

 not have designedly led us into error Incredibile 

 fst t Deum . . . Hits verbis ad populum fuisse 

 locutuni quibus deciperetur. We see fossils now 

 forming, and from what we know of the uniformity 

 of nature's operations we conclude that in the past, 

 and during the lapse of long geologic eras, fossils 

 have been produced through the agency of natural 

 causes as they are produced at present, and that, 

 consequently, they were not created directly and 

 immediately during any of the Genesiac days, days 

 of twenty-four hours each, as was so long and so 

 universally believed even by the wisest theolo- 

 gians and philosophers. 



rr. What has been said of the traditional views 

 respecting the six days of creation, the Noachian 

 Deluge, the antiquity of the human race and the 

 nature and age of the fossil remains entombed in the 

 earth's crust, may, in a great measure, be iterated 



