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ideas respecting the nature of sin and the character of God, 
are, as it seems to me, profoundly affected according as we 
take the statement of Scripture straightforwardly, which im- 
plies that man was created with special powers and privileges, 
and in a state of innocence, from which he fell, or, as we sup- 
pose, that man came to be what he is by degrees, by a vast 
number of infinitesimal variations from some lower order of: 
animal, accompanied by a correspondingly-continuous varia- 
tion in his mental and moral condition. On this latter sup- 
position, God is made to be responsible for his present moral 
condition, which is but the natural outgrowth of the mode of 
his creation. As regards the lower animals, little change 
would apparently be made, from a theological point of view, 
if we were to interpret as figurative the language which seems 
to assert a succession of creative acts. But the creation of 
man and his condition at creation are not confined to the 
account given in Genesis; they are dwelt on at length, in con- 
nexion with the scheme of redemption, by St. Paul, and are 
more briefly referred to by our Lord himself, in connexion 
with the institution of marriage. 
Now against these statements so express^ so closely bound 
up with man's highest aspirations, what evidence have we to 
adduce on the side of science ? Why, nothing more than a 
hypothesis of continuous transmutation, incapable of experi- 
mental investigation, and making such demands upon our 
imagination as to stagger at least the uninitiated. 
If an undue literalism of interpretation on the theological 
side created apparent opposition between science and faith, 
in respect to the Copernican System, and to the antiquity of 
the earth and of life upon it, I cannot help thinking that here 
apparent opposition arises from the erection, on the other 
side, of a scientific hypothesis into the rank of an established 
theory. 
Some have endeavoured to combine the statements of 
Scripture with a modified hypothesis of continuous transmu- 
tation, by supposing that at a certain epoch in the world's 
history mental and moral powers were conferred by divine 
interposition on some animal that had been gradually modified 
in its bodily structure by natural causes till it took the form 
of man. As special interposition and special creation are here 
recognised, I do not see that religion has anything to lose by 
the adoption of this hypothesis ; but neither do I see that 
science has anything to gain. Once admit special divine 
interposition, and science has come to the end of her tether. 
Those who find the idea helpful can adopt it ; but for my own 
part this combination of the natural and the supernatural 
