1]4 G. cox BOMFAS, t'.G.S., i'.R.G.S., ETC., ON 



understand to be lield by Haeckel and some others of Lis school, 

 meaning that atoms by degrees evolved themselves into life and 

 sense and intelligence, Darwin would have considered that, I 

 believe, revolting to our common sense. That is not the evolution 

 I speak of, and the object of the paper is to show that that is not 

 the evolution theory held by Darwin or Wallace ; and further 

 to show that life is the gift of the Creator, that life is the 

 active force of evolution, and that environment is merely a 

 negative force ; and therefore that creation, — whether evolution 

 or environment be used to shape the thing created, — is the work 

 of God, the Creatoi*, Who, as Avell as life, gave also intellect and 

 spirit, so that the whole creation is due to His design. (Cheers.) 



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 ON THE FOREGOING PAPER. 



Dr. D. BiDDLE writes : — 



It is quite true that, rightly considered, evolution is not incom- 

 patible with design, but rather enhances our conception of the 

 ingenuity displayed. We, however, who are Christians, regard 

 the Deity as " knowing the end from the beginning," and as using 

 evolution simply as a method. Extreme evolutionists, on the con- 

 trary, rarely do this. For the most part, their God is Nature, or if 

 they be deists of an optimistic tendency, they regard the Deity as 

 learning by experience, or (at least) feeling His way towards the 

 perfection of His works. A clearly cut design, even though worked 

 out thi'ough the centuries, partakes too much, in their eyes, of the 

 " carpenter-theory " of creation. Their preference is for a Deity 

 resembling those novelists whose characters evolve themselves, by 

 a kind of current cerebration, whether their own or the author's 

 beino- a matter of small account. Evolution of the fashionable 

 kind depends upon chance-variations^ and, in so doing, puts itself 

 outside the pale of true science, which would bring all variations 

 under some law. Indeed, it is not difiBcult to see that he who 

 could observe and accurately chronicle a veritable chance-variation, 

 would record a greater miracle than any to be found in Holy 

 Writ, and would in more telling terras confound the philosophy of 



