20 EVOLUTION AXD NATURAL THEOLOGY. 



natural than the supposition that it was either 

 called into existence out of nothing, or that it 



O ' 



was moulded out of previously existing mate- 

 rials? Accordingly we find that one or the 

 other opinion is taught by almost every religion 

 of which we have any knowledge. Neither 

 of these views imply Evolution, though the 

 second approaches nearest to it ; but in view 

 of the opposition encountered by Astronomy 

 and Geology, and indeed every new science 

 supposed, whether erroneously or not, to trench 

 upon received theological opinions, it would 

 certainly not be a presumption in favour of 

 Evolution that it was accepted as a truth by 

 the ancients, but rather the contrary.* They 

 had not the least conception of geology and 

 the allied sciences, without which the very idea 

 of Evolution could not exist. Besides, our 

 modern popular notions of religious cosmogony 

 are not the legitimate outgrowth of the positive 

 sciences of the more advanced portions of the 

 ancient world, but the offspring of the ignorance 

 and fanaticism of the Dark Ages. 



Until the close of the last century, the theory 



* Compare Herbert Spencer's " Biology," pt. 3, ch. 2. 



