206 THE LIGHT OF DAY 



ordinary course of nature. How different the natural 

 or scientific view ! When we look upon the world 

 with the eye of a philosopher we see that it is in- 

 deed the theatre of opposite and contending forces, 

 but that the good, that is the good from the point 

 of view of the best interest of the race, is slowly 

 triumphing. We see the race struggling up into a 

 higher and better life ; the long, dark, and devious 

 route which man has come is disclosed, but his evolu- 

 tion has gone steadily forward. We do not find sin, 

 in the theological sense. We see defects and imper- 

 fections, we see vice and disease, the ends of nature 

 crossed and thwarted, but no more and no differently 

 in the case of man than in the case of the animals and 

 plants. We see, in fact, that death is everywhere the 

 condition of life. We do not find that the theologi- 

 cal system takes hold of fact as reality at any point. 

 It is a matter entirely extraneous, or apart from the 

 laws and condition of things. There is no place for 

 the scheme of redemption. It looks just as artificial 

 as the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. It is an in- 

 vention of theology. On our maps we paint the 

 different states and countries different colors and 

 make the boundaries very prominent, but in nature 

 we know these things are not thus differentiated. 

 The different climates are not thus sharply separated ; 

 neither are day and night divided by right lines. 

 But our theology is as artificial as our maps or as 

 our division of time. 



How easy to see that these systems have come 

 down to us from an entirely different state of things, 



