49 
eye, that is one which we can all realize and admire ; but there are 
so many natural theologists who want the material to be as good as the 
idea, and that is the point I protest against. I do not . protest against 
the idea which underlies the structure. Mr. Row has given me some 
valuable hints on this point. At the end of my paper I say that order, 
method, law, and plan, are but expressions of mind, and I am quite 
aware that this point might have been worked out much more fully ; but it 
did not occur to me to dwell more especially upon order, though if I had the 
paper to write again, I should do so, because it gives us an incontestable 
proof of mind. As to pain as a physical evil, that is a mere question of 
opinion. You may culminate in death the extreme of physical evil. Pain 
may be very slight or very intense ; you do not know where to draw the 
line to show where it begins to be a physical evil. It is a mere matter of 
opinion. We know that the means whereby we receive pain are the same 
means whereby we receive pleasure — our nervous system serves for both, and 
we must grasp them both together. We must take not only the good parts, 
but, so to speak, all the bad parts together as forming one grand scheme in 
the will of God ; and all pain, from the least finger-ache to the greatest 
amount of agony, may be grouped together as what I call a state of probation 
for us ordained by God. I do not attempt to draw the line between what 
may be a physical evil and what may be nothing at all. With regard to the 
law of averages, perhaps I was wrong upon that point. Now I come to 
some remarks made by Mr. Allen, who said that the Bible was apparently 
passed over as to Genesis. I do not undertake to show any harmony between 
Genesis and nature ; my paper was studied objectively, and the deductions 
made in that paper are solely from nature. If it had been my purpose to 
reconcile Genesis with geology, I should have treated the matter very dif- 
ferently ; but that was not my object, and I should be out of order now were 
I to attempt to give any further reply upon that point. I will only call 
Mr. Allen’s attention to the following note, which is appended to the 18th 
page of my paper : — 
“ In this essay I do not profess to deal with metaphysical subjects. I have 
therefore made no mention of the soul of man. I will only repeat words 
which I have elsewhere said ( Geology and Genesis : a Plea for the Doctrine of 
Evolution. A Sermon) : — ‘ Admit that man’s bodily structure agrees closely 
with that of apes ; admit that his mental powers are of a like kind 
to those of the lower animals ; deduct as much as there is of agreement 
between them from man, and what is left ? An enormous amount of 
intellectual power ; a morality which they do not possess at all, as well as 
the power to appreciate and love an abstraction or an idea ; and I say there 
is no species, no genus, no family in nature that has ever existed or does 
exist, which affords us any ground for conceiving such an enormous impulse, 
as man has obtained somewhere, to have come to him by natural laws 
alone.’” 
Of course I could add a good deal more to that if I were to attempt an 
elaborate argument. Then there is the question as to the pigeon : does it 
relapse into its original condition ? The reply is, no. That question was 
YOL. VII. E 
