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because that Father should see fit to grant such to us only- 
through mediation of His own choosing. 
The Chairman. — I need hardly call upon you to thank Mr. Henslow for 
this interesting paper, and I now invite discussion upon it. 
Rev. C. A. Row. — There are several things in Mr. Henslow’s paper to 
which I should like to call attention for a moment, especially as one portion 
of the paper deals with a subject to which I have devoted an enormous amount 
of thought. But I want first to make an observation on the subject of this 
evolution theory generally. We are clearly not right in charging this theory 
with being atheistical, for it is conceivable that the Great Creator should have 
acted in the way which the supporters of the theory uphold. Still that is not 
my belief, though I admit that it is conceivably possible. We have the old 
illustration of Paley’s about the watch. Vfe all remember in the Natural 
Theology, where he points out that if the watchmaker, the artist who made 
the watch, could impart to that watch the power of generating another watch 
out of its own substance, that would not lessen the design involved in its 
production, and would not in the least degree show that the watchmaker 
was less of an artificer because he was able to produce a watch which 
should be able to generate another out of its own substance. So far, there- 
fore, I do not think that any theory of evolution should be criticised as 
necessarily atheistical or even as denying the existence of design in creation. 
However, we have been promised a paper on this subject, and I hope we 
shall then have it thoroughly well discussed ; for unquestionably it is one of 
the most important subjects of the present day. There is one difficulty for 
the ordinary mind in all theories of this kind, — they seem to banish the 
Creator to such an immense distance, that ordinary minds have a great 
difficulty in seeing God in a Person so far removed from them. These theories 
render it difficult to apprehend very distinctly the personality of the Creator, 
and I need hardly say that all previous systems of philosophy which had 
place anterior to Christianity, tended in the long run to get rid of the per- 
sonality of God. The idea is the same : vital force in nature, an anima 
mundi, or something of that kind running through these hypotheses, making 
them pantheistic, but resolving nature into cause and effect. With such 
views it was difficult to arrive at a fair conception of the Divine Personality. 
There is one remark in Mr. Henslow’s paper which is worthy of great 
attention. It is this : — 
“In the first place, then, I would lay down this proposition, which I think 
will be found of universal application, — that there is, in all probability, no 
such thing in this world as absolute perfection.” 
Now, that is a proposition which we should have deeply impressed upon our 
minds in all our philosophizing. We cannot argue from any abstract prin- 
ciples that the Creator would have made the world in this or that degree of 
perfection — we can only take the facts of the creation as they stand ; and 
