255 
10. Mr. Darwin and his disciples have taught that mind or 
intellect and the reason of man have been “ evolved” in like 
manner from the lowest known psychical attributes of animals 
far down in the scale of existence, passing through the same 
formulae of “ variation/' “ struggle/' “ survival/' and what they 
term “ natural selection/' — which preserves those who live 
through the struggle, and which is one day the most powerful 
factor and backbone Cf the system, and the next is broken 
down and acknowledged by Mr. Darwin himself to be imper- 
fect and to have been too much relied upon in the exposition 
of his theory. 
11. I have thus broadly laid down the two definitions which 
were necessary to make this paper intelligible; and I have been 
more explicit in this because in the present day a common mode 
of criticising the statements of an opponent is to accuse him of 
ignorance.* 
12. I undertake to prove that a belief in Darwinism and 
revelation is incompatible and irreconcilable, and in the 
argument I will first take the most favourable view of evolution 
as a means of creation by law ; and as Mr. Darwin in his recent 
work, the Descent of Man, has fully adopted the doctrine of 
evolution, it will only be necessary to treat of the whole as one 
hypothesis under the title of Darwinism. 
13. A belief in Darwinism then implies that in the beginning 
a living thing came into being. It did so, according to Darwin, 
by the power of the Creator breathing into one form or more 
the breath of life. According to Mr. Spencer, it might have 
been evolved : to use his own words, thus “ construed in terms 
of evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product 
of modifications wrought by insensible gradations on a pre- 
existing kind of being; and this holds as fully of the supposed 
f commencement of organic life ' as of all subsequent develop- 
ments of organic life. It is no more needful to suppose an 
‘ absolute commencement of organic life/ or a f first organism/ 
than it is needful to suppose an absolute commencement 
of social life and a first social organism."! 
* Agassiz, the great naturalist of the New World, in a recent address at 
San Francisco, on the result of his exploring expedition in the Hassler , 
describes evolution, as taught in this country, “ the work of blind forces, 
of forces without intelligence, without discriminating power, and without 
forethought/’ and that the object of the study of nature as so taught is “to 
determine whether we ourselves are descended from monkeys, or whether 
we are the work of a beneficent Father.” A writer in Nature, October 24, 
1872, in commenting upon these remarks, calls them “ singular misrepre- 
sentations” ! ’■ 8 [ 
f This passage is quoted by Dr. Bastian, without reference, in his 
Beginnings of Life . As there are no indices to Mr. Spencer’s works in my 
library, I cannot give a special indication where the passage occurs. 
T 2 
