36 THE LESSON OF EVOLUTION 



of nature ; sufficiently intelligent to foresee their results 

 when set in motion ; and sufficiently moral to have 

 conceived the moral evolution of man. 



It is true, as Pantheists urge, that our only experi- 

 ence of mind is in connection with matter. But, so 

 far as we know, mind is connected only with one 

 kind of matter, called protoplasm, which cannot 

 possibly exist throughout the universe. Consequently, 

 mind must either be absent from large portions of 

 matter, or it must be associated with that matter in 

 some way which quite transcends our experience. So 

 that we have no more experience of mind universally 

 distributed through matter, than we have of mind 

 distinct from matter. And the argument for Pantheism 

 breaks down. 



But this is not all. The demonstration that man 

 has been derived from the lower animals has enabled 

 us, at last, to reach a monotheistic conception of the 

 universe. While it was thought that man was an 

 independent creation, and originally sinless, it was 

 necessary in order to account for the origin of sin 

 to suppose the existence of a malignant spirit. But 

 now we have a simpler solution of the problem. Man 

 himself is the author of sin. We see it in the 

 unrestrained exercise of the animal passions, which he 

 has inherited from his non-rnoral ancestors, and which 

 it is his duty to repress. Consequently the ditheistic 

 idea of two spiritual powers constantly at war is no 

 longer necessary, and we can substitute for it a pure 

 monotheism. 



So the proof of evolution has ushered in a new era 

 of thought, and has shewn that Theism is the true 

 philosophy of the universe. It is, indeed, this theory 



