28 



The Naturalist. 



number of allied species apparently illustrating in the clearest manner 

 the theory of the siirvival of the fittest, and of the modification of 

 species to suit their circumstances. Without going so far as Dr. 

 Hartlaub, and inventing and subsequently submerging a new continent 

 in the interests of this fanua, we see here a number of foci from which 

 these allied species have arisen. This process of modification has 

 undoubtedly taken a considerable period to perfect • so long, that the 

 pigeon and rail representatives have had the time to lose the power of 

 flight altogether, and the owl and heron in great part. And those 

 accidental variations which have benefited the representatives have 

 become permanent characteristics, and been inherited and added to till 

 the naturalist finds the dodo and solitaire differing from one another 

 in a variety of ways, though still more closely related to one another 

 than hitherto any other forms ; and as with them, so with the rest. 

 And this close alliance holds good, not only amongst vertebrates, but 

 in the other branches of zoology, and in botany also. 



A very few years ago it would have been considered most unbecoming 

 and improper for a clergyman to have dared to countenance in public, 

 even in the smallest degree, the shocking (because misunderstood and 

 misrepresented), theory of natural selection. Without, however, going 

 to the extravagant lengths which some of the disciples of the 

 Evolutionist School would lead us, we must speak with respect of its 

 general doctrine, as of a theory which enables us to explain many of 

 the more difiicult problems in biology, if not fully and conclusively 

 (which, after all, may be only due to our want of knowledge of all the 

 links in the chain of argument), at least more so than any other 

 explanation as yet brought forward. 



Religion and science have been almost universally considered of late 

 years to be wholly incompatible. Surely this is not the case ! 

 Religion is the acme of truth. Science, too, surely, is truth, though as 

 yet science has hardly attained her majority, or got as clear from the 

 errors with which all systems are liable to be imbued at their birth. 



We live, however, in an age of progress, and it will not do for the 

 advocate of religion to stand aloof from the general advance, and say, 

 " Because I cannot explain the views of science by the light of my 

 religioii, therefore I ignore it." Science is truth, and for that reason 

 religion can explain it, and will explain it, when our vision becomes 

 sufficiently educated for the purpose. 



I am confident that before long religion and science will stand quite 

 on another footing, and that the further we advance in our knowledge 

 of science, the more we shall find out that religion revealed and science 



