276 EELATION OF NATURAL THEOLOGY 



and attributes of God from the evidence of specific 

 design and purpose. In this sense, also, we may accept 

 the declaration of God as a jealous God, for He has 

 shrouded the direct working of His hand in darkness 

 impenetrable to the eye of science. 



It is true there still remain two points on which 

 the evidence of science contradicts the assumption 

 that no change has ensued in the world's history 

 beyond what can be traced to existing causes. The 

 law of dissipation of energy leading to the inference 

 that as the present state of our solar system must 

 have an end, so it must also have had a beginning 

 and the origin of life on our planet are' held to demon- 

 strate the interference at some time of an external 

 power other than those of existing matter and force, 

 of which we are co gnizant by sensation and experience. 

 But it is not impossible that even these may be 

 brought within the province of natural causes, so I 

 for one am quite willing to go at once to the extreme, 

 and abandon all pretension to discover from science 

 alone, not only the attributes, but the very existence 

 of God at all, and to rest my whole belief on revela- 

 tion. Without revelation natural theology has hitherto 

 with peoples always led to Polytheism, and with philo- 

 sophers and men. of science to Atheism or Pantheism. 

 Once the knowledge of a single personal Creator has 

 been received through revelation (in fact Christian 

 writers on natural theology all start from a foregone 

 conclusion to that effect, whether consciously or not), 

 our position towards the invariable laws of nature and 

 to final causes becomes clearer. And we feel that com- 

 mon sense shows no difficulty in the way of the belief in 



