PHILOSOPHY AND “ EVOLUTION ” : AN INQUIRY. 143 
course, we shall he told of the possibility of denuded strata which 
may have contained many missing-links, but to establish a theory 
upon the unknown is not science. 
There is another difficulty. So far as we know, no new species 
are being evolved now. The differentiation of form is quite 
another thing. Hence there is no opportunity given us of watching 
this supposed evolutionary process. If evolution is possible, or ever 
has been possible, it must be due not only to outward conditions 
but to innate biological tendencies ; and we have no proof that such 
tendencies exist. If in the growth of the same embryo different 
forms are assumed — the form of a fish and then the form of a 
bird — there is not the least evidence that there is no vital difference 
between fish-bioplasm and bird-bioplasm, or that fish-bioplasm can 
produce a bird. But I think the advocates of the theory have 
failed to pay sufficient attention to the fact that there is reason to 
believe that in the earlier ages of the world’s history a process was 
taking place which is not taking place now. If we believe in a 
Divine Creator with a Will as free as our own, we cannot deny to 
Him the power of acting paroxysmally as well as gradually, and it is 
not unscientific to believe that He has done so. Indeed, when we 
carry our thoughts up into the religious sphere, I suppose none of 
us will doubt that He has done so in our own experience. If we 
have become regenerated it was not by a process of evolution that, 
“ we passed out of death into life.” Nor will any of us, I hope, be 
prepared to apply the theory to the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus 
Christ. As yet the theory is undemonstrated, and we ought not to 
have it forced upon us upon the authority of great names ; and we 
are only exercising a true scientific caution in requiring that our 
difficulties should be removed before we receive it. 
The Author’s Reply. — I wish to express my sense of the 
uniform courtesy and general agreement with which my paper has 
been received. A special interest attaches to Dr. G. Frederick 
Wright’s remarks upon Vitalism. The inability of evolutionists to 
account for the fact of Life is of no little significance. 
I ought, perhaps, to answer some friendly criticisms, which were 
not altogether unexpected. Mr. Woods Smyth has already had his 
contention corrected by Mr. Rouse. Mr. Woods Smyth appears to 
be misinformed in thinking that the Hebrew in the Creation 
narrative of Genesis lends support to evolutionism. Some time ago, 
