70 REV. A. IRVING^ B.A., D.SC, ON EVOLUTIONARY LAW 



(/3) The meaning of " God said " : successive manifestations (phases) 

 of creative thought directing the powers inherent in nature, 



(i) Luminosity of the nucleate planet — the hari/sphere (v. 2, 3). 



(ii) The e.rpanse of dark intervening space (as seen in the 



"spirnl nehulae '") as solar and planetary gravitation 

 ■ increased (v. 6), evolution of the lithosphere and the 

 h>/drosphere. 



(iii) Emergence of laiid above the universal Cambro- Silurian 



ocean, evolution of a land-flora (mostly of vascular crypto- 

 gams) from the previous cellular cryptogams, the former 

 the ancestry in the Devonian and Carboniferous Ages of 

 the present land-flora (v. 9, 11). 



(iv) Clearance of the terrestrial citmosphere with greater con- 



densation of the solar mass — direct solar rays reach our 

 planet— enormous and rapid development of plant-life 

 with a reduction of the proportion of CO., and an increase 

 of that of 0„ in the atmosphere (v, 14, 15). 



(v) Evolution (in the Mesozoic Age) of mobile air-breathers 



with organs of vision, amphibians, reptiles, birds (warm- 

 blooded) — inception of mammalian life (v. 20, 21). 



(vi) Fuller development of Tertiary mammalia (warm-blooded) 



culminating in the Homo of the Quaternary Period 

 (v. 24, 25). 



(vii) The Homo endowed with spiritual faculties to exercise the 



overlordship of creation and to worship the Creator — a 

 day without " an evening and a morning " (i, 27-30, 

 ii, 1-3). 



L Statement of the Author's Position. 



IN approaching this subject in the present state of our know- 

 ledge, we have to take into account many things which, 

 with the advance of critical research and the widening of the 

 geological outlook, are floating in the intellectual atmosphere at 

 the present time. In doing so, one has to dismiss that notion 

 of " inspiration," which requires a slavish adherence to the 

 letter, and to look rather to the spirit and intention of the 

 inspired record. Along with what is called " Monism " we can 

 recognise that the universe of Being has an unity in itself like 

 its divine Author ; that in its origin it is one, though in its 

 elaboration, manifold ; without committing ourselves to the 

 bald pantheism of the line of Pope, in which he speaks of the 

 Creator as the soul of the universe, — 



" Changed through all, and yet in all the same " ; 

 which moreover seems to "run on all fours " with Haeckel's 

 later doctrine of " substance." We may fairly contend that what 

 there is of truth in the materialistic monism is all contained 



