EVOLUTION AND THEOLOGY. 259 



the two mottoes from "WTiewell and Bishop But- 

 ler. 1 



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 system 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 Nature 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 



1 " 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." WhewelVs Bridgewater 

 Treatise. 



" The only distinct meaning of the word ' natural ' is stated, fixed, or 

 gelded ; 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. 



