274 THE REV. CHANCELLOR LIAS, M.A., ON 



covered wliicli shows one species in the act of passing into 

 .-nother. On the contrary we see that pecuharities intro- 

 dnced into ' species by the will of man begin to die out as 

 soon as the external influence is removed, and that the 

 tendency under those circumstances is not towards the 

 formation of new species, but towards reversion to type. 

 We see, too, that any attempt to form new species by 

 coupling together individuals of existing species, how near 

 soever to one another, is invariably defeated by the sterility 

 of the offspring. It appears, therefore, still scientifically 

 probable that the production of new species is due to the 

 action of a supernatural force, in other words, of the will of 

 a supernatural being, and that it is therefore a fact of the 

 same supernatural order as the first appearance of life upon 

 earth. This supernatural order has no doubt its laws. The 

 Creator seems, if we may say so with reverence on the strength 

 of patent facts, to be incapable of using action which can be 

 described as purely arbitrary. The whole history of animal 

 life proves this. Each creation of species seems to have pro- 

 ceeded on a plan — to have been superinduced on former acts 

 of creation — to have been a kind of grafting of new forms upon 

 an old stock. But the scientific evidence points, it may be 

 fairly contended, not in the direction of chance, but of the 

 deliberate exercise of Will. This exercise of Will — and not 

 of Will pure and simple, but of Will under the guidance 

 of Reason and Purpose — is marked yet more clearly by the 

 adherence to type, which we have just observed. The 

 same truth applies with even yet more force to the intro- 

 duction of man upon the earth, since in his case the rational 

 intelligence seems to be different not merely in degree, 

 but in kind, from fhe intelligence of all beings previously 

 existing. Moreover, in man we are brought into contact 

 with a fact of an altogether new order.* The existence in 

 him for the first time of spiritual organs brings the visible 

 universe into touch with the spiritual world beyond. Nor 

 is this all. Even in the ordinary phenomena of life it is 

 reasonable to believe that supernatural forces are at work 

 not occasionally, but continuously. Take the case of the en- 

 trance into the world of each individual of whatever species. 

 Can it be said that this depends to any appreciable extent 



* " The evidence appears to be utterly insutficient to establish, on 

 sc-ientitic grounds, the derivation of man by continuous natural transmu- 

 titiou from some different form of living thing." Sir G. Stokes, A'aiural 

 Tlieology, p 73. 



