SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY 141 



profess to serve, Theodore Parker gave expres- 

 sion to a broader and more reverent theology 

 when he said: 'The universe, broad and deep and 

 high, is a handful of dust which God enchants. 

 He is the mysterious magic which possesses* 

 not protoplasm merely, but "the world'" (Lloyd 

 Morgan, 1905, p. 77). 



How did living creatures begin to be upon the 

 earth? In point of Science, we do not know. We 

 cherish the hypothesis, however, that living crea- 

 tures evolved from not-living matter upon the 

 Earth. We do so mainly because we do not know 

 of any better hypothesis, and because it conforms 

 with our (metaphysical) ideal of continuity and 

 with the general idea of evolution. But we are 

 aware that the hypothesis is beset with very 

 serious scientific difficulties and with not less 

 serious philosophical difficulties. 



Consider, for a moment, a famous passage 

 from Huxley: "If the fundamental proposition 

 of evolution is true, namely, that the entire world, 

 animate and inanimate, is the result of the mutual 

 interaction, according to definite laws, of forces 

 possessed by the molecules which made up the 

 primitive nebulosity of the universe; then it is 

 no less certain that the present actual world 

 reposed potentially in the cosmic vapour, and 

 that an intelligence, if great enough, could from 

 his knowledge of the properties of the molecules 



