264 THE THEORY NOT ATHEISTIC. 



imputation of heresy. The truth is, it is no more 

 necessarily an atheistic doctrine than the reference of 

 physical phenomena to their natural causes, nor in 

 biology than the theory of the origin of species. It 

 does not necessarily deny creation or design, but it 

 merely pushes the visible interference of the Creator's 

 hand a stage farther back. The whole course of 

 science is an illustration of the substitution of natural 

 processes for the immediate interference of the 

 Almighty as the cause of the phenomena of nature. 

 In the present instance no natural process has been 

 discovered which can explain the origin of living 

 i, latter, and we may depend upon it that if such be 

 discovered, it will not tend to diminish in the least the 

 enormous gulf that exists between the actual living 

 matter and that which is not living. 



