REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSION. 433 



This ever-present action of the Deity, this im- 

 manence of His in the work of His hands, this 

 continuing in existence and developing of the crea- 

 tures He has made, is what St. Thomas calls the " Di- 

 vine administration," and what is ordinarily known 

 as Providence. It connotes the active and constant 

 cooperation of the Creator with the creature, and 

 implies that if the multitudinous forms of terres- 

 trial life have been evolved from the potentiality of 

 matter, they have been so evolved because matter 

 was in the first instance proximately disposed for 

 Evolution by God Himself, and has ever remained 

 so disposed. To say that God created the universe 

 in the beginning, and that He gave matter the 

 power of developing into all the myriad forms it 

 subsequently exhibited, but that after doing this 

 He had no further care for what He had brought 

 into existence, would be equivalent to indorsing 

 the Deism of Hume, or to affirming the old pagan 

 notion according to which God, after creating the 

 world, withdrew from it and left it to itself. 



Well, then, can we say of Evolution what Dr. 

 Martineau says of science, that it "discloses the 

 method of the world, not its cause ; religion, its cause 

 and not its method." ' Evolution is the grand and 

 stately march of creative energy, the sublime mani- 

 festation of what Claude Bernard calls "the first, 

 creative, legislative and directing Cause." 8 In it we 

 have constantly before our eyes the daily miracles, 



1 See Essay on Science, Nescience, Faith. 



2 " En resume", il y a dans un pheViomene vital, comme dans 

 tout autre phenomene naturel, deux ordres de causes : d'abord 



E. 28 



