WHAT IS DARWINISM? 113 



the Scriptural doctrine, that of the Vestiges of 

 Creation, and that of Darwin on the origin of 

 species. He thus states the doctrine of the 

 Bible on the subject : " If," he says, " science 

 be another name for real knowledge ; if science 

 be the pursuit of sound wisdom ; if science be 

 the. pursuit of truth itself ; I say that man has 

 no right to reject anything that is true be- 

 cause it savors of God. Well, what is this 

 hypothesis — older than that of Darwin — 

 which does, and does alone, account for all the 

 observed facts, or all that which we can read, 

 recorded in the book of Nature ? It is, that 

 God created all things very good; that He 

 made every vegetable after its own kind ; that 

 He made every animal after its own kind ; 

 that He allowed certain laws of variation, but 

 that He has ordained strict, though invisible 

 and invincible barriers, which prevent that va- 

 riation from running riot, and which includes 

 it within strict and well defined limits. This 

 is a hypothesis which will account for all that 

 we have learnt from the works of Nature. It 

 admits an intelligent Being as the Author of all 

 the works of creation, animate as well as in- 

 animate ; it leaves no mysteries in the animate 

 world unaccounted for. There is one thing 



