EVOLUTION AND THEISM. 393 



or to stifle its results, and by placing themselves in hearty sym- 

 pathy with the spirit of the present. Of that spirit, the noblest 

 manifestation is to be found in the life of that great man whose 

 departure from among us has drawn forth an expression of 

 reverential sorrow, the universality of which speaks more elo- 

 quently than any words of the world-wide influence exerted by 

 his thought. For in Darwin — as has been well said by one who 

 knew him best — the love of truth was more than his animating 

 motive, it was the passion of his intellectual nature. And its 

 ultimate prevalence — whether including the acceptance or in- 

 volving the rejection of his own system — was the firmest and most 

 deeply rooted of his convictions. 



It is in this spirit that I ask you to follow me through 

 the inquiry which constitutes the purpose of our present 

 meeting. 



I need scarcely tell those whom I am addressing that the 

 general idea of Evolution is by no means new. A notion that 

 the universe has not endured for ever in the form and aspect it 

 now presents, has been entertained in all ages, and by all peoples 

 of whose thoughts on the subject we have any record. In the 

 Chaos of the old Greeks we have the type of confusion and dis- 

 order ; in the void and formless waste of the Hebrews, the 

 attempt to represent a primeval condition which could only be 

 characterized by negations, 



— a dark 

 Illimitable ocean, without bound, 



Without dimension, where length, breadth, and height, 

 And time and place, are lost. 



Out of this Chaos, divine power evoked order and harmony ; the 

 void and formless waste was made first to take definite shape in 

 the separation of the firmament from the earth ; the great lights 

 were set in the one ; the other was first clothed with vegetation, 

 and then peopled with animated forms, beasts of the field, fowls 

 of the air, fish of the sea; and last of all Man was called into 

 existence, and dominion given him over all other creatures. And 

 even those who at the present time regard the Mosaic cosmogony 

 as having an authoritative claiin on their acceptance, are bound 

 by it to regard Creation, not as an ivuneUiate but as a progressive 



