430 Anniversary Address. 



" What is a species ?" — " What is the true natural order ?" 

 and captivated by the taking nature of this evolution scheme, 

 which, it seems to them, is being generally accepted by the 

 scientific world, and with their imprimatur hy the world 

 at large, these naturalists are disposed to accept it as the key 

 to their difficulties, if they can only do so without doing 

 violence to their religious instincts. 



Darwin himself declares that when he views all things, 

 not as special creations, but as lineal descendants of some 

 very few beings which lived long before the first bed of the 

 Silurian system was deposited, they seemed to him to become 

 ennobled ; and his views are w eightily endorsed ; for many 

 very able men in pulpit, press, and platform have declared 

 that not only does the Evolution Theory not interfere with 

 Natural Religion, but that it even tends to raise our ideas of 

 the greatness and powers of the Creator, if we suppose that 

 by His omniscient omnipotence a few simple forms of matter 

 ■w ere invested with powers capable of producing such mag- 

 nificent results : if we suppose that a picture was formed in 

 the divine mind, and ten or twelve organisms created, which 

 were destined in course of time to clothe it with living 

 reality ; and that whether the creative activity of God is 

 manifested by sudden creations, or by the working out of a 

 long chain of secondary results, it is still His Creative activ- 

 ity, and all gi'eat questions beyond remain untouched. That 

 seems just now the popular line to take up. On the other 

 hand, there is a large number, and fiom the very first has 

 always been a compact body of men of high light and leading, 

 who have firmly maintained a contrary opinion ; who have 

 insisted that the theory is altogether imaginative and im- 

 probable, inconsistent with and derogatory to true concep- 

 tions of God in relation to our world, and destructive of 

 natural religion ; and that " natural selection " is a mislead- 

 ing expression to designate a force which has no real exist- 

 ence ; and the " adaptation of nature " no more than a taking 

 title for an imaginary factor in the glorious Scheme ; who 

 have refused, and do refuse altogether to bow down to 

 the golden image which, they aver, Darwin set up, declaring 



