ON THE EVOLUTION MATERIALISM AND THEOLOGY. 317 



the materialistic biologist tells us, it is quite as wonderful ; 

 but it is a fact, however astonishing, and as a fact it i& 

 conceivable, while the other account of supernatural 

 creation is a fiction, and of the worst kind, because it 

 never coi^be made conceivable to us under our existing 

 mental conditions. Moreover, extraordinary as is the 

 evolution before birth of any living being, human or 

 other, there is no appearance of the action of a mind at 

 work unfolding each stage of the process ; on the contrary, 

 science, which has lately been deeply engaged on the 

 subject, tells us only of the action of matter, the evolution 

 one after another, and according to regular ascertainable 

 laws, of the wonderful properties stored up implicitly 

 in all-powerful and mysterious matter. A mysterious, 

 universal, immanent power is here manifested, if you 

 will ; the materialist affirms that it is a power inherent 

 in and belonging to matter, and most certainly it is not 

 mind in any sense of that term to which we can attach 

 a meaning. Even if we grant a universal power at every 

 point and pulse of the organic, as of the inorganic world, 

 existing everywhere and at all times, still this would not 

 be a universal mind, but a universal power or agency ; 

 and if we are to use our words with any definite meaning, 

 we cannot affirm that there is a supreme mind at work, 

 4 shaping the individual organs by supernatural power 

 before birth, when science assures us that it is all done 

 by natural processes. There is no more trace of mind in 

 the short process of evolution which the science of 

 embryology surveys, than in the long processes of evolu- 

 tion of which Darwin tells us this is but a very brief 

 epitome. The evolution of the individual, with all its 

 exquisite adaptations, is as wonderful truly as the evolu- 

 tion of a planet, as the evolution of the human species ; 

 but it is no more brought about, than were those others, 



