REFLECTIONS AND CONCLUSION. 435 



admission that " If once you allow yourself to think 

 of the origin and end of things, you will have to 

 believe in a God." And the God you will have to 

 believe in is not an abstract God, an unknowable x, 

 a mere metaphysical deity, " defecated to a pure 

 transparency," but a personal God, a merciful and 

 loving Father. 



As to man, Evolution, far from depriving him 

 of his high estate, confirms him in it, and that, too, 

 by the strongest and noblest of titles. It recog- 

 nizes that although descended from humble lineage, 

 he is " the -beauty of the world, and the paragon 

 of animals;" that although from dust tracing his 

 lineage back to its first beginnings he is of 

 the "quintessence of dust." It teaches, and in 

 the most eloquent language, that he is the highest 

 term of a long and majestic development, and re- 

 places him " in his old position of headship in 

 the universe, even as in the days of Dante and 

 Aquinas." 



Evolution an Ennobling Conception. 



And as Evolution ennobles our conceptions of 

 God and of man, so also does it permit us to detect 

 new beauties, and discover new lessons, in a world 

 that, according to the agnostic and monistic views, is 

 so dark and hopeless. To the one who says there is 

 no God, " the immeasurable universe," in the lan- 

 guage of Jean Paul, "has become but a cold mass 

 of iron, which hides an eternity without form and 

 void." 



