16 



sensation, are full of wisdom, and form the universal mind, if 

 there be any mind." /. 



All this possesses the virtue of antiquity ; though taught in the 

 nineteenth century, it is not the product of nineteenth century 

 thought ; " there is nothing new under the sun ;" and we have 

 here but the resuscitation and adoption of a philosophy first put into 

 a concrete form by Lucretius, who, living in the first century before 

 the Christian era, taught that " Nature is seen to do all things 

 spontaneously of herself without the meddling of the gods." So 

 we go back nearly 2000 years for the articles of our scientific 

 faith — just as we do for those of our religious faith. Well, 

 suppose it all true ; is it, I ask, more easy to accept than the 

 statement, " In the beginning God created the Heaven and the 

 Earth?" Does it contain less or more of mystery than that simple 

 verse? We are told that this Biblical statement is improbable, or 

 that is all unknowable ; then the only agent to fall back upon is 

 chance. " There is no alternative " says Dr. Dallinger, " either 

 chance, or mental purpose gave primal origin to all that is. 

 Nothing within the reach of intellect could express the infinite 

 improbability of the first suggestion. That one vast harmony, one 

 perfect method, should fall out by chance, through the operation of 

 uncounted millenniums of ages, is almost inexpressibly improbable ; 

 but that a system of harmonies practically infinite in number and 

 measureless in extent, should all be locked together in one vast 

 uniting harmony, making all creation a chorus, to which all its 

 parts form the centre to the margin contribute their flowing and 

 concerted strains, without a discord to the unity of thought ; to say 

 that that arose by chance, sprang from fortuity, fell out by accident, 

 is surely to trifle with the fundamental principles of our moral 

 faculties and reasoning powers." (g.) Why all this endeavour to 

 exclude a Creator ? Why this disregard of all the laws of thought 

 and of all the teachings of experience ? From birth onward thro' 

 the whole of our life we learn that every contrivance must have had 

 a contriver, every machine a maker who understood what he 

 wanted, and what he was doing ; but directly we study the contri- 

 vances and machines in Nature we are told to stop, to disregard all 

 experience, to draw no conclusions. Is this true Science ? 



EVOLQTION. 



Closely connected with these remarks is the theory of Evolution. 

 I do not refer it its explanation as put forward by Darwin or others 

 but to the simple theory itself, namely, that every living species 

 has been evolved by slow and imperceptible steps, and by Natural 



(/) The supernatural in Natare. 

 (g) Pernley Lecture p. 17. 



