EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY. 259 



the two mottoes from Wliewell and Bisliop But- 

 ler.^ 



The gist of the matter lies in the answer that 

 should be rendered to the questions — 1. Do order and 

 useful-working collocation, pervading a s^^stem through- 

 out all its parts, prove design ? and, 2. Is such evi- 

 dence negatived or invalidated by the probability that 

 these particular collocations belong to lineal series of 

 such in time, and diversified in the course of Nature 

 — grown up, so to say, step by step? We do not 

 use the terms " adaptation," " arrangement of means 

 to ends," and the like, because they beg the ques- 

 tion in stating it. 



Finally, ought not theologians to consider whether 

 they have not already, in principle, conceded to the 

 geologists and physicists all that they are asked to con- 

 cede to the evolutionists ; whether, indeed, the main 

 natural theological difficulties which attend the doc- 

 trine of evolution — serious as they may be — are not 

 virtually contained in the admission that there is a 

 system of l^ature with fixed laws. This, at least, we 

 may say, that, under a system in which so much is 

 done " by the establishment of general laws," it is 



^ " But with regard to the material world, we can at least go so far 

 as this — we can perceive that events are brought about, not by insu- 

 lated interpositions of divine power, exerted in each particular case, 

 but by the establishment of general laws." — WhewelPs Bridgewater 

 Treatise. 



" The only distinct meaning of the word ' natural ' is stated^ fi^cd^ or 

 settled ; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an in- 

 telligent agent to render it so — i. e., to effect it continually or at stated 

 times — as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it for once." 

 — Butler'' s Analogy. 



