xiv. INTRODUCTION 



immortal, and condemn to instant death the demon of 

 Materialism. So great was the good to be achieved thereby 

 that I came to the conclusion I had better risk the giving of 

 insult to past religious beliefs as the lesser evil of the two. 

 For instance, if I saw a comrade about to be shot in the head, 

 and were to knock him down with a blow in the face and so 

 save his life, I should expect, not only his forgiveness, but 

 his gratitude, great as the offence might have been. So, if, as 

 I feel, I have been both rude and clumsy in the methods I 

 have used to impress the truth of God's control of evolution 

 and creation, I must ask you to allow the end to justify the 

 means. 



Before closing this Introduction, I may state that the 

 hypothesis put before the reader in this treatise, appears to me 

 to be in accord with the aims and objects of Evolution. Like 

 many other writers, until it was forced upon my mind in the 

 manner hereafter narrated in Chapter II., I should have con- 

 sidered this as being beyond the ken of mortal man. Professor 

 Darwin in " The Origin of Species " (page 429) writes as 

 follows : " There is a grandeur in this view of life with its 

 " several powers, having been breathed into a few forms, or 

 " into one, and that while this planet has gone cycling on 

 " according to fixed laws from so simple a beginning, endless 

 " forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are 

 " being evolved." 



Mr. Henry Drummond writing in his work on " The 

 Descent of Man " (page 49) says : " But can an intellectual 

 " answer satisfy us more than the mechanical one which it 

 " replaced? As there was clearly a moral purpose in the end 

 "to be achieved by Evolution, should we not expect to find 

 " some purpose in the meaning? Can we perceive no higher 

 " design, no worthy ethical result which should justify the 

 " conception as well as the execution of Evolution? We go 

 " too far perhaps in expecting answers to questions so tran- 

 " scendent. But one at least suggests itself whose practical 

 " value is apology enough for venturing to advance it. When- 

 " ever the scheme was planned it must have been that the time 

 " would come when the directing part of the course of Evolu- 

 " tion would pass into the hand of man. A spectator of the 

 " drama, for ages too ignorant to see that it was a drama, and 

 " too impotent to do more than play his little part. The dis- 



