MODIFICATIONS IN THE IDEA OP GOD, ETC. b9 



reason why it should not liave been a law of the universe 

 from the beginning. So the Hebrew Scriptures seem to 

 tell us. The Breath of God brooded over the surface of 

 the waters, and the result of His action was the production 

 of form in the formless and life in the lifeless. Where the 

 mistake comes in is in the notion, found alike on each side 

 of the question, that the fact of evolution is incompatible 

 with the working of a Divine mind. It is nothing of the 

 sort. The creative energy can unfold from within as w^ell 

 as interfere from Avithout. It can graft new forms on old 

 ones by a new impulse from Avithin as easily as we can 

 graft a rose bush or an apple tree. And the influence of the 

 Divine mind is as necessary to the true theory of evolution 

 as it was to the old notion of perpetual interferences. No 

 other cause than that influence can, I think, be assigned for 

 the production of new species, especially when the hnvs 

 which regulate life seem to be directed towards the pre- 

 servation of existing distinctions and towards the prevention, 

 under ordinary circumstances, of the development of one 

 species into another. Thus the comparatively modern idea 

 of the benevolent despot, governing by successive exertions 

 of an arbitrary will, is replaced by the old Hebrew doctrine 

 of a Divine force, governed by self-imposed laws, and 

 working for the good of sentient beings. The only modifica- 

 tions Avhich are required are those Avhich are introduced 

 first by the revelation of God in Christ, which taught us 

 to look upon God, not only as Power, Mind, Will, or even 

 Life, but as primarily and above all Love, thus enthroning, 

 as surely should be the case, the moral aspect of His Being 

 above all others, and next by the discoveries of science in 

 later years, which have shown, from the facts of the 

 Divine Avorking that greater limitations have been placed on 

 the exercise of the Divine Avill by the principles of order and 

 laAv, than had been conceived possible before this Avide 

 extension of our knowledge.* 



In truth, then, scientific research has simply brought the 

 old idea of immanence, hinted at in the HebrcAV Scriptures,t 

 fitfully discerned by Greek and almost entirely obscured in 

 Latin Christianity, once more into prominence. The despot 

 theory — and in media3A^al and even to a certain extent in 

 modern theology the despot Avas not ahvays benevolent — 



* I may be permitted once more to refer to Lessoiis from Work, 

 pp. 30-32. t E.g., Psalm cxxxix, 15 ; Isaiah xxvi, 12. 



