Ii8 THEOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS 



implications, of their ultimate Cause, and of their 



general purpose. And the fact that man is conscious 



of being superphysical, as well as physical, teaches 



that he can never rest content with merely physical 



knowledge, without incurring atrophy of his higher 



faculties and failure of self-realization. 



I As Laplace rightly enough implied, the subject of 



(creation lies outside the sphere of physical science. 



Such science limits itself to describing the processes of 



existing things. The evolutionary theory, for instance, 



is on its own showing simply a description of what hap- 



' pens to organic life when once brought into being. 



i The problem of its origin remains exactly where it 



j was before the modern evolutionist changed the face 



' of descriptive science.^ Yet to grapple with that 



problem is a task which mankind cannot evade. It will 



not allow itself to be ignored. And its solution must 



be had in one of two contrary views : — either that the 



universe is its own basis of existence and eternal;, or 



that all things therein have ultimately originated by 



creation. The former alternative is formulated in 



pantheism and in materialistic monism, — systems of 



thought which derive what plausibility they possess 



^ In a chapter contributed to F. Darwin's Life and Letters of Chas. 

 Darwin, Vol. II. pp. 202, 203, Thomas Huxley says: "There is a 

 great deal of talk and not a little lamentation about the so-called 

 religious difficulties which physical science has created. In theolog- 

 ical science, as a matter of fact, it has created none. Not a solitary 

 problem presents itself to the philosophical theist at the present day 

 which has not existed from the time philosophers began to think out 

 the logical grounds and the logical consequences of theism." 



