402 NATURE AND MAN. 



have done even within our own limited experience, and these 

 being replaced by others, of whose origin, however, science could 

 give no account. 



Now, putting aside for the moment the question of the origin 

 of new forms of organic life, I would ask you to consider what is 

 the real theological bearing of this general doctrine of continuous 

 evolution, whether astronomical or geological. As I have endea- 

 voured to make clear to you, the very fact of its beginning implies 

 a moral cause for that beginning ; and the experience we derive 

 from our own sense of effort in producing physical change, 

 justifies us in regarding the action of what we scientifically desig- 

 nate the " physical forces," as the expressions of a continuously 

 acting will. Now, I fearlessly ask, which is the higher theological 

 conception, — that of the progressive unfolding of a plan conceived 

 in the first instance by the Infinite Wisdom whose counsels have 

 not changed because the end has been seen even from the begin- 

 ning, and of the continuous exertion, with persistent uniformity, 

 of an Almighty Power, which "fainteth not neither is weary," 

 during these countless ages through which we are carried back by 

 our cultured scientific imagination ; or the anthropomorphic fig- 

 ment, conceived in the lowest stage of religious development, of 

 an artificer beginning the work of creation (according to Arch- 

 bishop Usher's chronology) on the 23rd of October, 4004 B.C., 

 proceeding with its successive stages for six days, and then, 

 fatigued with his labours, taking a Sabbath day's rest, during 

 which the newly-created world had to go on as it best could ? 



Passing, now, from the evolution of the inorganic universe to that 

 of the Organic forms with which our globe is at present peopled, 

 I must content myself with the general statement, that no one who 

 possesses a competent knowledge of the facts brought to light by the 

 ever-widening extension of palseontological research, can do other- 

 wise than admit that they tend strongly and unmistakably in the 

 direction of the doctrine of ^^;;///;«///7— maintained by "descent 

 with modification "—in opposition to the doctrine of successive 

 creations de novo. And this doctrine is found to be in such 

 singular accordance with the converging indications furnished 

 by ^every department of biological research, that, to almost every 



