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the mind of man since he became morally evil. Man being evil 
himself, looked out upon the world through a glass darkly, and 
so all nature seemed coloured with the murky aspect of his 
own morbid phantasy. 
Recognize this world as never furnishing more than a relative 
condition of things ; while the purpose and design of that, too, 
is not difficult to see, now we have the light of Revelation 
thrown upon it ; namely, as a state of probation for man, to fit 
him for a higher destiny than any which this world can furnish ; 
accept this as a great and universal truth, and you will not 
discolour your view of creation by erroneous views of God’s 
goodness, much less by atheistic ideas ! 
We are told that “the pure in heart shall see God/’ and 
that “ all things work together for the good of those who love 
Him ! ” Learn, then, to succumb to His will, try to adapt 
yourself to the conditions in which you are placed, not the 
conditions which are about you to yourself — that is reversing a 
natural law — and you will begin to suspect that what you 
irrationally called “ physical evils 33 were, after all, but blessings 
in disguise. (Cf. S. James i. 2.) 
The very idea of “evil” as applied to nature is, to my mind, 
totally uncalled for, and gladly would I limit it to sin and its 
effects (and even these latter, as often as not, are clearly 
blessings). It is not for us to find fault with nature, but to 
accept it as we find it, as the best for our good ; and I repeat, 
man would never have dreamt of regarding things as evils if he 
was not evil himself, and so considered everything about him 
evil too. Here, then, come in the elements of faith and 
humility, which I alluded to as essential elements of the 
character of a student of nature. 
Chance. 
The preceding remarks on design will, I think, cover all 
that need be here said upon its former use by teleologists, and 
the new extension of its meaning which I would venture to 
give it. I now pass on to consider the next element of the 
argument which enters into the subject of this essay, namely, 
that of chance , — an element which forms so important an item 
in the process of natural selection, but which natural theo- 
logians have been very loth to admit, as being derogatory to 
their ideal and subjective method of Divine working. 
What is meant by chance? We use the word often enough, 
but, when we think about it, it does not appear to be so easy of 
explanation as we might have at first imagined, for we discover 
that it may be employed in more than one sense. Let us 
consider some of them. 
