THEISTIC AND ATHEISTIC EVOLUTION 23 



THEISTIC AND ATHEISTIC DOCTRINES OF 

 EVOLUTION. 



As soon as an intellectual man feels attracted 

 by any scientific theory, his impulse is to give it 

 a general application. Even if his actual knowledge 

 reaches only to a definite point, and although in 

 all probability much will remain unfathomed by 

 scientific research even in the future, he is never- 

 theless inclined to entertain bright hopes of success, 

 and mentally to expand his vast conceptions by 

 means of arguments based only on analogy. Thus 

 a philosophical theory of evolution arises out of the 

 physical theory, and no legitimate objection can be 

 raised to it in itself, for it only corresponds to the 

 requirements of the human intellect. We were, in 

 fact, touching upon philosophy in the first lecture, 

 when I asserted that the Christian theory of the uni- 

 verse was not incompatible with the scientific theory 

 of evolution. In making this assertion I at once 

 imported a philosophical element into the subject, 

 and in order to sketch a bold outline of the evolu- 

 tion of the universe according to natural laws, I 

 generalised from a form of evolution proceeding 

 from the first word of creation. Therefore it is 

 quite according to nature for us to generalise about 

 the physical theory of evolution on philosophical 

 lines ; but if we do this, we soon begin to ask on what 

 foundation this generalisation can be constructed, 

 and here we reach the domain of the theories of the 



