ON THE CREATION AND GOD. 89 



lent than a good intention in view ; and so she stands 

 acquitted. 



The evil that exists, and the evil that has always 

 existed, is rather the result of imperfect organization or 

 of the strife for life between the units, necessarily too 

 numerous for the supply of food. But this evil, in the 

 human species at least, is a steadily diminishing factor, 

 and in time, according to Herbert Spencer, though 

 it be a long time, it will totally disappear. We men, 

 particularly in civilized societies, have come well out of 

 the long and bloody struggle of the past. The fortunes 

 of our species, as appears from its best specimens in 

 civilized nations, are steadily on the rise ; and already 

 great things have been attained, giving a promise of still 

 greater. There has been from the infancy of the species 

 a great and astonishing progress made ; and there shall 

 be yet further progress, and that too at a constantly 

 accelerating rate of speed, so as to carry us further in 

 shorter time. Thus Science, speaking through the mouth 

 of her sanguine apostles, speaks and prophesies. And 

 thus the faith of Science is optimistic, in spite of her 

 painful knowledge of the past, and to some extent also 

 the present, state of things in the world. 



Science, indeed, must be optimistic, both from her 

 knowledge, her pretensions, and her actual work in help- 

 ing men to subdue their evils. She shows us a great 

 rise in our species from a low and unpromising origin, 

 and moreover she has indirectly much mitigated the ills 

 and multiplied the comforts of men through many and 

 great inventions made by her suggestions. Looking 

 backwards, she discerns that there has been an extra- 

 ordinary expansion of man's nature, and a consequent 

 increase of happiness ; looking forward, she feels justified 

 by her own inductive logic in prophesying a much higher 



