EXAMIifATlON OF PROF. CARPENTER's EVOLUTION. 201 



relation that any animal or an}"- plant bears. That relation is 

 inscrutible, and so is the relation of man. 



We believe in a Supreme Intelligence, and we believe in Evolu- 

 tion. We also believe that evolution in nature exists because the 

 Supreme Intelligence has willed that it should exist; but vve can- 

 not believe with Dr. Carpenter that it exists, becau^^e there was no 

 other way by which the Supreme Intelligence could manifest itself. 

 For this would be to prescribe bounds for that which is infinite. It 

 is true that we cannot think of God as a rational being without 

 thinking of him as governed by the laws of rationality, nor can we 

 think of Him as a just God. without being governed by the laws of 

 justice, nor can we think of Him as possessing any mental attribute 

 without thinking of the law governing the manifestation of it. Yet 

 these conceptions of God ,are but human, they are efforts of the 

 finite to measure the Infinite, and taking them at their best, our 

 reason tells us that they fall far short of God himself. It is true 

 that in nature there is such an orderly sequence of events, that in 

 recognizing it, we call it law, but to say that this law-exists because 

 God designed it, and to say that it exists because a rational God 

 cannot manifest himself in any other wa3^ are two very different 

 things. Nor can we see, if the Supreme Intelligence is governed 

 by the law of rationality, and if it manifest itself in material form, 

 why there should be such enormous intervals of time between the 

 different steps in the divine consciousness as is evidenced by the 

 physical symbols. For if evolution in matter is but the reflection 

 of evolution in the Divine mind, as Dr. Carpenter teaches, then ev- 

 olution in both is simultaneous. There could, consequently, have 

 been no conception of man in the Divine consciousness before his 

 advent physically — for his advent physically is but the reflection of 

 an evolved concept in the Divine mind. There could, therefore, 

 have been no plan of creation embracing man, for man is the last of 

 the series — is the complex as opposed to the simple — the particular 

 as opposed to the general. But the last term in a deductive series 

 must be reached by the law of rationality, that is to say, it must be 

 derived from the first term by a differentiating process, consisting 

 in the addition af attributes not found in the preceding terms. Ac- 

 cording to Dr. Carpenter, if man had been conceived by the Divine 

 consciousness it must have been by some rational process and such 

 process would have been immediately symbolized in matter. But 



