\]2 G. C05^ BOMPAS, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., ETC., ON 



Mr. L. Thrupp. — The author began his paper by saying that 

 truth was like a shield that has two sides to it. Where he has 

 kept on one side I agree with much that he has said ; but I 

 doubt whether he could contend iov a moment that evolutionists 

 will go from side to side as he has done, or admit half the state- 

 ments that he has made. Both Darwin and those who follow 

 him, appear to me to contend for self-evolution without the 

 interference or guidance of Providence, and to have caused in 

 the minds of a large number an increased infidelity. It has been 

 said that if evolution be true, it merely shows that the Creator 

 originally designed the universe and set it working rather than 

 interfering constantly during the progress of the earth's history. 

 That is the position the author's mind seems to me to occupy. 

 Of course, if that were the case he can say at once that evolu- 

 tion is the original design of the Creator, and having left it 

 there, it goes forward in fulfilment of His design. Now, in the 

 first place, the author has alluded to a very common phrase 

 of some evolutionists who declare that the world has been 

 started like a clock, with all the previous arrangements for its 

 going, and having been so constructed it has been left to work 

 without further interference. Here yon see at once that such a 

 theory, whether right or wrong, appears to exclude the Creator 

 from an over-ruling Providence and further interference in the 

 world. It therefore becomes a very serious question whether 

 such an evolution theory is true or false, because it undoubtedly 

 undermines all, or the greater part, of those points of faith upon 

 which we rely, I should say, as the very basis of our religion, for 

 the basis of our religion itself is the relation between the Deity and 

 man, and if that relation be abandoned after the first creation of 

 the world, and the world is left to the working of things like a 

 clock, it can no longer be, for a moment, regarded in the same light 

 in which we have always been taught — a constant communication, 

 as it were — between the Deity and man, and His over-ruling provi- 

 dence at all times and all seasons. Hence the issue is far greater 

 than that alluded to in the paper, and I think it is quite idle to 

 attempt to amalgamate the two ideas, because they appear to me 

 antagonistic. As to some parts of the Darwinian theory, they 

 might be rejected at once. I allude to sexual selection. Pi-ofessor 

 Wallace in his last work on Darwin, said they could not be enter- 

 tained any longer, that they were not correct and must be dis- 



