228 THE REV. A. R. WHATELY, M.A., D.D., ON 



became separate no longer, and the unity of the Divine action — 

 for those who held it to be Divine — was vindicated beyond the 

 dreams of the apologist. 



But the modern theist's assertion of the rationality of Nature 

 is essentially philosophical, and therefore links up, directly or 

 indirectly, with the whole range of Philosophy. The simple 

 empiricism of Paley's argument is left behind — I do not say 

 wholly and forever, but certainly to be resumed only under new 

 conditions and in a larger context of thought. The question of 

 the one ordered universe, and whether or no we are obliged to 

 think of it as rational at the core, and what this further implies 

 as to personality, purpose, love, redemptiou, and revelation — all 

 this takes us into a different region of thought. 



When the Neo-Darwinian emphasizes the elimination of the 

 unfit and the Neo-Lamarckian the direct effect of the enviroir- 

 ment upon the orgarrism, it is obvious that, however we can 

 meet them, we cannot meet them by any facile argument — any 

 that has not indefinite implications in many directions. Even if 

 the reply is scientific, this must surely be so. But I have tried to 

 suggest that a merely scientific reply, even if possible, is 

 unsatisfactory. The mind that must come to an understanding, 

 if not of, at least with, first principles, will always ask itself if 

 anti-theistic Evolutionism not merely happens to be untrue, but 

 is unthinkable. 



When the new theistic philosopher takes the place of the old 

 apologist, he abandons the empirical argument from coincidence, 

 expressed or implied by the other, I mean the coincidence 

 between the products of Nature and the products of human art. 

 Bather he sees in both the different stages oi oue great creative 

 principle, which, as it produces man, so produces through man. 



Certainly all depends upon the form Evolutionism takes. 

 But that is most certainly irot a mere question for science. 

 Obviously the form harmonious with Christian Theism is that 

 called Epigenesis, or the creation of the new on the basis of 

 the old. That is not Evolution according to the etymology of 

 the word, but it is Evolution in a sense that answers to that 

 craving for the unification of thought to which I have already 

 referred. Now it should certainly be clear that Epigenesis 

 cannot be refuted by science. We may accept the Transformist 

 doctrine of the origin of species ; yet new species are none the 

 less new. To assert the opposite — to affirm that Evolution is 

 literally the unfolding of the previously existent — is not science 

 but a particularly transcendental philosophy. This is the 

 doctrine which Bergson describes by the formula " Tout est 



