IN TROD UCTION. 1 5 



Fortunate enough perhaps it is, for this fact pre- 

 vents a too precipitous advance, and compels sci- 

 ence to give good reasons for every step it takes. 



In regard to evolution, however, it has not re- 

 quired fifty years to show that a belief in religion is 

 not materially affected by its acceptance. Al- 

 ready our leading thinkers among theologians, as 

 well as elsewhere, have recognized that the question 

 is a scientific one purely, and must be decided upon 

 scientific grounds ; whether it is decided in the 

 affirmative or the negative it does not trouble the 

 belief in theism. Some people appear to think that 

 to explain any phenomena by law, is to take it out 

 of the hands of the Creator ; and hence, if all 

 things could be reduced to law, there would be no 

 longer any need for a Creator. But this is plainly 

 far from the truth. Even if evolution be admitted 

 to its fullest extent, it does not explain creation ; it 

 only proves continuity. Darwinism itself explains 

 the origin of nothing. It simply claims that the 

 universal survival of the fittest varieties would 

 slowly give rise to new species. And even the 

 other theories which attempt to account for these 

 varieties do not touch any bottom, although they 

 go deeper into the matter. It is an old saying, that 

 evolution cannot exceed involution ; a saying which 

 is sometimes held up to ridicule. But in its true 

 sense it expresses an undoubted truth. Evolution, 

 using the term now as Spencer uses it, does not 

 create, it only modifies. Were it not true that un- 

 der all nature there existed harmonious laws ; were 

 it not true that matter possessed certain properties; 



