268 THE CHAIN OF LIFE. 



it as potential energy, and thus, forming a mere eddy, so to 

 speak, in the process of dissipation of energy, it accumulates 

 • that on which animal life and man himself may subsist, and 

 assert for a time supremacy over the seen and temporal on 

 behalf of the unseen and eternal. I say, for a time, because 

 life is, in the visible universe, as at present constituted, but a 

 temporary exception, introduced from that unseen world where 

 it is no longer the exception but the eternal rule. In a still 

 higher sense, then, than that in which matter and force testify 

 to a Creator, organisation and life, whether in the plant, the 

 animal, or man, bear the same testimony, and exist as outposts 

 put forth in the succession of ages from that higher heaven that 

 surrounds the visible universe. In them, as in dead matter, 

 Almighty power is no doubt conditioned by law, yet they bear 

 more distinctly upon them the impress of their Maker, and 

 while all explanations of the physical universe which refuse 

 to recognise its spiritual and unseen origin must necessarily 

 be partial and in the end incomprehensible, this destiny falls 

 more quickly and surely on the attempt to account for life and 

 its succession on merely materialistic principles. 



Here, however, we must remember that creation, as main- 

 tained against such materialistic evolution, whether by theology, 

 philosophy, or Holy Scripture, is necessarily a continuous, 

 nay, an eternal influence, not an intervention of disconnected 

 acts. It is the true continuity, which includes and binds 

 together all other continuity. 



It is here that natural science meets with theology, not as an 

 antagonist, but as a friend and ally in its time of greatest need ; 

 and I must here record my belief that neither men of science 

 nor theologians have a right to separate what God in Holy 

 Scripture has joined together, or to build up a wall between 

 nature and religion, and write upon it "no thoroughfare." 

 The science that does this must be impotent to explain nature 

 and without hold on the higher sentiments of man. The 

 theology that does this must sink into mere superstition. 



