116 SCIENCE AND BELIGION. 



disadvantage. They do not have the final word in this matter of develop- 

 ment. The belief of the world is to be settled utterly without their advice. 

 Not what they say, but what the scientists say, is to conclude this debate. 

 Whether species have been produced by development or by creation is a 

 question of fact, to be settled purely by scientific evidence. It is not a mat- 

 ter of philosophy or of morals, to be decided by consulting the psychical or 

 ethical consciousness; nor is it a matter of revelation, to be decided by con- 

 sulting the Word of God. For the conclusions we must examine to see 

 whether new species are being now produced about us, and whether the 

 records which the earth has preserved of its own history tell us anything 

 on this subject. ' This is the task of the naturalist, and not of the religion- 

 ist; and, so far as we can judge at present, the answer which the naturalist 

 will give is in favor of the new theory. Not many years ago the answer 

 would have been just the contrary. Geologists were catastrophists, and 

 thought they had evidence that sudden changes had occurred in the condi- 

 tion of the earth, and that one thousand utterly new creatures had more 

 than once been simultaneously introduced. Then geology was the record 

 ot miracles one hundred times more stupendous than any recorded in the 

 Gospels; but now the tide has turned, and another view is generally taken. 

 There will be a sifting of evidence and a settlement of judgment, which 

 will be final, and which theologians will have to accept. At present, we 

 say, it looks extremely probable that the result will be the victory of evolu- 

 tion. Now, with this probability, or even with a possibility of it, it is not 

 generalship for those who set themselves up as the special defenders of rev- 

 elation to make it absolutely inconsistent with evolution. 



"4. Evolution does not deny God. Nearly all evolutionists are theists. 

 We acknowledge that it appears to remove God a little further oif, but that 

 is only in seeming. God may be just as active and present in law as he is 

 in miracle. Be it remembered that every single conquest which science has 

 made in reducing phenomena under the sway of law has appeared to many 

 to put God at a greater distance. But by it God's government has only 

 been made more orderly, and his own character more glorious. 



"5. Let it be remembered that many wise men hold with Prof. Asa 

 Gray that the argument for the existence of God drawn from design is not 

 destroyed or even weakened by the theory of evolution. They see a de- 

 signer in the law and progress of the evolution of an eye or a hand as 

 clearly as in its absolute creation. Now allow us a God, and revelation is 

 an easy deduction. That evolution is inconsistent with the literal prosaic 

 interpretation of the story of Adam created de novo out of dust, and Eve out 

 of his rib, we do not deny; but the story of Eden is so true in its essence, 

 and yet carries so many signs of a symbolic or poetical meaning that this 

 fact need disturb none but those who will not listen to reason. It is even 

 true that the story of the fall of man in its most literal interpretation, with 

 the doctrine of imputation of Adam's sin included, is not utterly inconsis- 

 tent with development, though it is with Darwinism. None but the most 



