EVOLUTION OF MAN 95 



point from which to regard the unknown factors in 

 evolution. The late Thomas Huxley's words will not 

 frighten us when he says, "A phaenomenon is explained 

 when it is shown to be a case of some general law of 

 Nature; but the supernatural interposition of the 

 Creator can, by the nature of the case, exemplify no 

 law, and if species have really arisen in this way, it is 

 absurd to attempt to discuss their origin." ^ Our reply 

 is simple. Belief in supernatural causation does not 

 in the least interfere with beHef that the fact of such 

 causation reveals itself in the working of uninterrupted 

 natural law. Such causation need not subvert natural 

 law, but may account for effects w^hich natural law is 

 employed to bring about, but which none the less trans- 

 cend the powers of nature alone to achieve. The task 

 of physical science is to describe the physical laws 

 which the Creator employs; and the importance and 

 profitableness of this task is in nowise reduced by the 

 discovery that facts and problems emerge which purely 

 physical theories do not account for or explain.^ 



Ill 



It is in the light of the necessary limitations of a 

 purely physical explanation of the developments of 

 organic life that we ought to consider its appHcability 

 to the human species. I believe that the evidence by 

 which the evolutionary theory is supported, in so far as 



^ Darwiniana, p, 57. 



2 On the theistic aspects of natural evolution, see pp. 112-116, 

 below. 



