259 



29. But the ^' plasm has now much higher and more com- 

 plex duties to fulfil. It has to people the air and the water 

 with living beings ; it has to evolve creatures with structures 

 so complicated that the highest wisdom and genius of man often 

 fails to unravel or explain them ; it has to evolve forms not 

 only in themselves complete but having organs each adapted 

 to its peculiar function^ and each organ again more or less 

 dependent upon its fellow ; and it is an absolute necessity that 

 they should go on evolving from 'Mjlind force to consciousness 

 and will/^ from the psyche of the plant to the instinct of the 

 animalj and from this to the reasoning mind and immortal soul 

 of man. 



30. Snch is Evolution/^ its duties and responsibilities under 

 the most favourable aspects ; it is believed by many excellent 

 and good men, who consider it consistent with religious 

 belief. I need hardly say, however, that such a mode of the 

 origin of species has no basis of proof, nor, in my opinion,, 

 of probability even, in its favour. Were it true, it would be 

 merely a mode of creation with the Creator replaced by a 

 Deus ex macliina of human invention. Why should we 

 accord to a God of the imagination that honour which we 

 would thus deny to the God of Nature and Revelation ? As 

 Agassiz, the great American naturalist, has well said, the work 

 of creation is not such as a master mind would relegate to 

 a workman — it is work which shows in every step of its 

 progress the guidance of a designing All-Powerful Creator. 

 Mr. St. G. Mivart, in his Genesis of Species, remarks, without 

 a distinct belief in a personal God, it is impossible to have any 

 religion worthy of the name ; and no one can at the same time 

 accept the Christian religion and deny the dogma of creation.^^ 



31. The two extracts just quoted, however, express widely 

 different phases of thought. Agassiz endeavours to prove, and 

 to my mind he does so conclusively, that creation is personal 

 and direct. Mr. St. George Mivart believes in evolution, with the 

 exception of the soul of man, which he thinks was created 

 when " God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.^^ 



32. But the life and the soul of man are two entirely different 

 and inconvertible terms. The supposition, for it is nothing 

 more, of their identity must also break down, because it neces- 

 sarily assumes that there was a time when man^s corporeal 

 frame existed without a soul, which is equally repugnant to 

 common sense and authority. 



33. I now proceed to examine more carefully some of the 

 utterances of Mr. Darwin and his followers as they affect their 

 belief in the evolution theory. The fourth edition of the 

 Origin of Species of Mr. Darwin ends thus : — There is 



