GIFT OF 
 SEELEY W. MUDD 
 
 and 
 
 GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER 
 
 DR.JOHNR. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD 
 
 JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI 
 
 to the 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 SOUTHERN BRANCH 
 
 JOHN FISKE
 
 imiyERSITY of CAOFOlOfi^ 
 
 AT 
 
 hOS ANGELES 
 
 LIBRARY
 
 Can the Old Faith Live 
 WITH THE New? 
 
 OR 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF EVOLUTION 
 AND REVELATION 
 
 REV. GEORGE MATHESON, M.A., D.D. 
 
 MINISTER OF THE PARISH OF INNELLAN 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MDCCCLXXXV 
 
 ^ 
 
 Ail Rights reserved
 
 ■1 Pi
 
 ^4 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Our object in this volume is to consider the rela- 
 tion of the modern doctrine of Evolution to those 
 doctrines of the Bible which bear on the develop- 
 ment of the world ; and as natural evolution is 
 supposed to involve religious agnosticism, we have 
 prefaced the inquiry by considering the scientific 
 value of the religious sentiment in general. The 
 chapters are not a series of disconnected studies, 
 but are arranged on a principle of development, 
 and therefore they cannot be read out of their 
 natural order. 
 
 There are two important books which have stim- 
 ulated us to make this attempt — that of Mr Joseph 
 John Murphy on 'The Scientific Bases of Faith,' and 
 that of Professor H. Drummond on ' Natural Law 
 in the Spiritual World.' Our design, however, is
 
 \-i Preface. 
 
 not identical with that of either of these works. 
 Both of these are in their nature constructive ; 
 their aim is to build a faith on the acceptance 
 of the modern doctrine of Evolution. Our pur- 
 pose, on the other hand, is purely analytic. We 
 have nowhere desired to express any opinion as 
 to the scientific evidence for that doctrine ; our 
 sole design has been to inquire if the doctrine 
 be true, What then .'' With this view we have 
 placed it side by side with those doctrines of 
 revelation which seem to come into contact with 
 it, and have sought impartially to consider the 
 question, How the adoption of the former would 
 affect our acceptance of the latter. 
 
 In considering the scientific relations of the 
 different religious doctrines, we have confined our- 
 selves rigidly to those points in which revelation 
 appears to come into contact with Evolution. 
 There are many questions between science and 
 revelation which are not questions between Evolu- 
 tion and revelation. The relation, for example, of 
 the six days of Genesis to the progressive periods 
 of geology may be a question between science and 
 revelation, but it is not a cjucstion of Evolution : 
 it would still remain to be solved even though the 
 modern doctrine of Iwolutlon were disproved ; it
 
 Preface. vii 
 
 exists for the creationist as much as for the Dar- 
 winian. Evolution relates to the particular mode 
 in which things became what they are, and it is in 
 this light purely that we have viewed the subject. 
 We have only to add that, as we have mentioned 
 few names, we have made use of few references, 
 our object having been not to seek recondite facts, 
 but to avail ourselves only of those which have 
 obtained universal currency. 
 
 G. M. 
 
 Manse, Innellan, 1885.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. INTRODUCTORY, 
 
 II. THE PLACE FOR FAITH IN THE SYSTEM OF 
 NATURE, 
 
 III. IS THE OBJECT OF FAITH KNOWABLF. . 
 
 IV. THE CONDITIONS REQUISITE TO DIVINE KNOW 
 
 LEDGE, ...... 
 
 V. CREATION AND EVOLUTION, .... 
 
 VI. EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION, . 
 VII. EVOLUTION AND THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF LIFE, 
 VIII. EVOLUTION AND THE PRIMITIVE MAN, . 
 IX. EVOLUTION AND PROVIDENCE, 
 X. EVOLUTION AND THE SECOND ADAM, . 
 XI. EVOLUTION AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT, 
 Xn. EVOLUTION AND DIVINE COMMUNION, . 
 
 XIII. EVOLUTION AND IMMORTALITY, . 
 
 XIV. CONCLUSION, 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 24 
 
 5° 
 72 
 
 lOI 
 
 130 
 
 173 
 199 
 223 
 
 2C2 
 279 
 305 
 338
 
 CAN THE OLD FAITH LIVE 
 WITH THE NEW? 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 Our design in the present treatise is to endeavour 
 to ascertain to what extent the speculations of 
 modern thought would, if proved to be true, affect 
 the fundamental articles of religious belief Our 
 subject is therefore not the establishment of a 
 thesis but the institution of an inquiry. Our aim 
 is not either to prove or to disprove anything. 
 We have simply recognised the fact that the spirit 
 of the nineteenth century has led men to certain 
 views of mind and nature which are very different 
 from those entertained by their fathers ; and with- 
 out inquiring whether they or their fathers have 
 occupied the right side of the question, we have 
 set ourselves, if possible, to determine the influence 
 
 A
 
 2 Can the Old Faith live luith the Neiv ? 
 
 of these opinions on the religious sentiments in 
 which we have been nurtured. 
 
 It will be seen that the position here taken is an 
 intermediate, to some extent a neutral, one. There 
 have been two extreme attitudes in which faith 
 has stood to science — that of antagonism and that 
 of alliance. There are some who have looked 
 upon the page of revelation as a final sentence 
 against the doctrine of Evolution ; there are others 
 who have looked upon it as itself an anticipation 
 and forewarning of the truth of that doctrine. We 
 do not ourselves hold either of these views. We 
 do not believe that when the writer of the Book of 
 Genesis attributed to God the act of creation, he 
 had in his mind an\' comparison whatever between 
 creating and evolving, and therefore we refuse to 
 see in the doctrine of that Book either an anticipa- 
 tive refutation or an anticipative corroboration of 
 the doctrine of Evolution. But when all this is 
 said, there remains another and an intermediate 
 question, which, alike from the side of religion and 
 of science, is a legitimate subject of inquir}^ We 
 may refuse to believe that the old culture was in 
 any conscious sense an anticipation of the new, 
 and still we may ask the question, Will the new 
 culture lend itself to the old .'' Is it possible, on 
 the one hand, that the ancient faith may be ex- 
 pressed in terms of modern thought, and on the 
 other, tliat modern thought may be expressed in
 
 Introductory. 3 
 
 terms of the ancient faith ? Let it be observed 
 that such an inquiry is at all times legitimate, and 
 is by no means limited to the sphere of Christian 
 theology. No one, for example, would for a moment 
 maintain that Confucianism was a designed anti- 
 cipation of the institutions of modern culture. Yet 
 there may occur circumstances in which it may be 
 the interest of modern culture to ask whether her 
 institutions can take root on the basis of the Con- 
 fucian system, whether the results of modern civil- 
 isation can find a possible meeting-place in any 
 caste of thought indigenous to the Chinese soil. 
 It is not too much to say that the discovery of 
 such a meeting-place, so far from being regarded 
 by modern culture as a detraction from her own 
 dignity, would be hailed by her with the most 
 lively enthusiasm. Alike in the field of missionary 
 enterprise and in the field of secular education, 
 the discovery of a point of contact between the 
 most recent and the most antique civilisation 
 which the world has beheld, would be greeted 
 as a pioneer of progress and a promise of future 
 development. 
 
 Is there, then, any a priori probability that such 
 a meeting-place should be found between the old 
 culture and the new } At a first glance it would 
 seem as if such a hope were precluded by a simple 
 study of the records of the past. The original 
 impression made on every student of history is a
 
 4 Can tJic Old FaitJi live ivith the New ? 
 
 sense of the utter transitoriness of the tlioughts 
 and the systems of men. The civilisations of the 
 past seem to succeed one another in no other re- 
 lations than those of destroyer and destroyed. 
 Each new system of culture is to all outward 
 appearance built on the spot left vacant by the 
 removal of its predecessor, and the feet of those 
 who carried out its predecessor are already seen 
 waiting at the door to carry it out also. In a 
 floating panorama such as this, — a panorama which 
 appears to consist only of shifting scenes without 
 causal sequence and without mutual interdepend- 
 ence, — it is hard to see where room can be found for 
 any contact between the future and the past. If 
 the history of previous systems has been simply 
 the history of successive revolutionary changes in 
 the thoughts of men, what reason have we to sup- 
 pose that the system which we now call modern 
 shall manifest any greater continuity with the 
 products of other days .'' 
 
 And if, indeed, the apparent picture were the 
 real one, there could exist no reason for such a 
 hope ; there is no reason whatever to believe that 
 the culture of the nineteenth century possesses any 
 exceptional element which puts it beyond com- 
 parison with previous cultures. Is the picture, 
 however, of these previous cultures what it has 
 been represented to be .'' Do we find on examin- 
 ation that the civilisation of one period has dis-
 
 Ijiirodiictory. 5 
 
 placed the civilisation of another by the process of 
 abolition ? On the contrary, the slightest scrutiny 
 of human annals makes it apparent that, in every 
 case, the displacement has been effected not by 
 abolition but by transmutation, — that the new 
 system has taken the place of the old not by root- 
 ing out the old, but simply by transplanting it. 
 To make this clear, let us take one or two repre- 
 sentative instances. 
 
 One of the earliest and most extensive modifica- 
 tions of human culture exhibited by the history of 
 man is that embraced in the transition from the 
 creed of the Brahman to the doctrine of the Bud- 
 dhist. At first sight it would seem as if that 
 transition had involved a complete and radical 
 revolution — a revolution in which the old faith was 
 entirely obliterated, and a new faith, or rather an 
 absence of faith, substituted in its room. Yet a 
 deeper study will show us that Buddhism never 
 contemplated any such revolution. Buddha, like 
 Confucius, appeared not as an innovator but as a 
 reformer. He did not propose to break with the 
 past ; what he desired was, to give a philosophic 
 meaning to the dogmas of the past, to represent 
 in the world of spirit that which up to his time had 
 only been symbolised in the world of matter. He 
 found a belief current in his age and country that 
 the souls of men who had conquered their worldly 
 lusts would be absorbed at death in the Life of the
 
 6 Can the Old Faith live zvitJi the Neiv ? 
 
 Universe. So far from contradicting that belief, 
 he said that it erred not by excess but by defect. 
 He declared that the hope held out by Brahmanism 
 of emancipation from individual care, so far from 
 being a delusive hope, was not expressed with 
 sufficient emphasis. The Brahman had contented 
 himself with saying that a redemption from in- 
 dividual care might come in the future world ; 
 Buddha announced that such a redemption might 
 be reached now and here. He told his country- 
 men that they had been taught by Brahmanism to 
 look not for too much but for too little ; that they 
 did not need to wait for the loosing of the silver 
 cord in order to find rest ; that they might enter 
 into rest in the very heart of the present scene of 
 things, and in the midst of the world of life might 
 obtain the Nirvana of peace.^ He told them that 
 the true death for the spirit of man Avas the death 
 of self, the surrender of individual desire, the giv- 
 ing up of the anxious longing for seen and perish- 
 able things. Here was a new civilisation, yet it 
 was a nov^elty reached purely by the transmu- 
 tation of the old — a civilisation which had in- 
 deed constructed a completely different edifice, but 
 which had constructed it by transposing and re- 
 combining the elements of that edifice which it 
 
 * See T. Y. R. lJ)avid's ' Lectures on the Origin and 
 rirowth of Religion, as illustrated by some points in the 
 History of Indian Buddhism,' Appendix X., p. 253.
 
 Introductory. y 
 
 had destroyed. Buddhism was not the annihila- 
 tion of Brahmanism. It did not build itself upon 
 the ruins of the ancient system ; rather did it carry 
 that system up to the summit of the mount and 
 transfigure it there. It built a new tabernacle, but 
 it built it out of old materials — those very materials 
 which had been furnished by the life of that age 
 which it came to supplant. 
 
 The second representative instance we shall 
 select is the transition from Judaism into Christi- 
 anity. We believe Christianity to have been the 
 introduction of a new moral and spiritual force 
 into this world, the introduction of a force which 
 conferred upon humanity a new power for living a 
 moral and a spiritual life. To this extent, there- 
 fore, we hold Christianity to have been an innova- 
 tion on the old order of things. But the innovation 
 lay purely in the newness of the method, not in the 
 newness of the work to be done. Christianity by 
 its own admission did not come to teach men a 
 new morality ; almost the initial words of its 
 Divine Founder are these : " Think not I am come 
 to destroy the law." So far from having come to 
 destroy the morality of Judaism, Christianity de- 
 clared that its mission was to intensify the range 
 of that morality, to fulfil that which from its 
 weakness it could not itself do. The force 
 which lay in Judaism was not sufificient to ac- 
 complish its own aspirations ; Christianity brought
 
 8 Can the Old Faith live zuith the Nezv ? 
 
 a new force to its aid to overtake the old 
 things. 
 
 Accordingly, as we pass from the Jewish to the 
 Christian dispensation we are struck with a fact 
 somewhat analogous to that observed in the transi- 
 tion from Brahmanism to Buddhism. We see that 
 we have entered into a different circle of ideas, but 
 we are at the same time made aware that the 
 difference has been reached not by destruction but 
 by transmutation. The leading ideas of Chris- 
 tianity. are renewals of the leading ideas of Juda- 
 ism. If Christianity destroys Judaism, it is only 
 on the principle that where the perfect has come 
 the partial is done away ; it destroys it by absorb- 
 ing its separate night-lights in one common blaze 
 of day. Christianity has united two ideas which 
 in Judaism are not only separate but contradictory 
 — the idea of kinghood and the thought of sacri- 
 fice. In the Judaic polity these ideas never did 
 coalesce ; the one was the antithesis of the other. 
 There were cases, indeed, in which the offices of 
 the priest and of the king were combined in one 
 person, but even then there was no amalgamation. 
 The same person might be both priest and king, 
 but he could not be both priest and king at the 
 same moment. And the reason is plain. In 
 Judaism priesthood and kinghood denoted two 
 opposite states of mind : priesthood was the mark 
 of humility, kinghood was the badge of independ-
 
 Introductory. 9 
 
 ence. Accordingly, in Jndaism the ruler could 
 only become a priest by ceasing for the moment 
 to rule, and the priest could only become a ruler 
 by ceasing for the moment to sacrifice. The acts 
 might be combined in one life, but they were only 
 combined as any number of inconsistencies may 
 be united in the person of a single man. But 
 when Christianity came, it not only retained these 
 two ideas — it abolished their differences, it joined 
 together what man had put asunder. The idea of 
 priesthood and the idea of kinghood ceased to 
 denote two opposite mental attitudes ; they be- 
 came merely different sides of one thought — the 
 headship of Christ. Here the priest and the king 
 met together. The Head of the body was king 
 over the members just because He was the real 
 sufferer in all that the members bore, and He was 
 the real sufferer in all that the members bore just 
 because He was the Head of the body. In this 
 strange and subtle thought, borrowed from the 
 constitution of the physical frame, Christianity 
 joined together in one idea what in all the systems 
 of antiquity had been separate and contradictory 
 elements. It united the conception of sacrifice 
 with the conception of royalty, and out of their 
 union it evoked a new idea — the empire of sacri- 
 ficial service. The combination was as new in its 
 result as is the result produced by the combination 
 of oxygen and hydrogen, yet equally in the one
 
 10 Can the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 case as in the other, the newness has been reached 
 by the incorporation of elements ah-eady existing 
 in the previous state of things. 
 
 We shall take one more example of the relation 
 which, in the course of human history, the new 
 culture habitually bears to the old. In one sense 
 no two states of civilisation can be more opposed 
 to one another than Mediaevalism and Paganism. 
 Theoretically, the former is the antithesis of the 
 latter, and came to supersede it. Yet it is none 
 the less certain that the temple of Mediaevalism is 
 supported by two pillars which had their origin in 
 Pagan culture. Mediaevalism is professedly a sur- 
 vival of the Roman Empire, and the Roman Em- 
 pire, in its Christianised form, preserved essentially 
 all the characteristics of its Pagan condition. Now 
 the Roman emperor in his days of Paganism 
 united in himself two functions, in both of which 
 he was esteemed an object of reverence ; he was 
 the ruler of the state and he was the head of 
 religion — the chief Consul and the Pontifex Maxi- 
 mus. In both of these attitudes the emperor was 
 deemed sacred. Hence it was that in the system 
 of Roman Paganism, Church and State were one. 
 There was no real distinction between the political 
 and the religious, between treason and impiety, 
 between heresy and crime. Around the idea of 
 the state there circled two conceptions — the 
 thought of religious sanctity and the thought of
 
 Introductory. 1 1 
 
 political power. Vet in their nature and in their 
 aim these two were one ; the religious sanctity was 
 political, and the political power was religious. 
 
 Now this was precisely the thought which 
 Medisevalism appropriated. The idea of Mediae- 
 val government, so far from being detached from 
 the culture of the past, was essentially based on 
 past culture. That government in a slightly modi- 
 fied form revived the conception of Roman Im- 
 perialism. Here, as in the older civilisation, 
 Church and State were again one. Here, again, 
 the civil power comprehended two functions — the 
 one political, the other ecclesiastical. The differ- 
 ence lay in the fact that in Mediaivalism the two 
 functions no longer belonged to the same person. 
 A nominal division was made between the province 
 of the secular and the province of the sacred, and 
 each was assigned to its own representative ; the 
 former was symbolised in the emperor, the latter 
 was incarnated in the pope. We say a nominal 
 division, for the most superficial study makes it 
 evident that the recognition of two heads instead 
 of one made no real separation between the secu- 
 lar and the sacred. The emperor was nominally 
 the ruler of the State, but he claimed, by inherit- 
 ance from his Roman ancestors, a headship over 
 the Church as well ; the State was to him identical 
 with the Church. The pope was nominally ruler 
 of the Church, but, in virtue of that very fact, he
 
 1 2 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 claimed a headship over the State also ; the 
 Church was to him identical with the State. The 
 whole fabric was, in short, the reproduction of an 
 older culture. Medisevalism constructed her gov- 
 ernment upon no ideal or Utopian model. She 
 did not build her structure out of fancy, but 
 reared it out of past experience. The Renaissance 
 which came at the close of Medievalism has been 
 called a revival of Pagan civilisation, but in truth 
 it only intensified the effort at which Mediaeval- 
 ism aimed. The aim of that civilisation had 
 all along been regressive, and the Renaissance 
 only put the finishing touch to the process by 
 which the Europe of the Middle Ages strove to 
 reunite itself to the secularism of the first Christian 
 century. 
 
 We have taken these three specimens not as 
 marking abnormal aspects of culture but as repre- 
 sentative of the course which we believe all culture 
 to have followed in every age. It would have 
 been as easy to have produced fifty specimens as 
 three ; indeed we are acquainted with no past 
 civilisation which would not yield the same result 
 In our selection of these particular specimens we 
 have been guided by the fact that each of them 
 exhibits a distinct form of culture. The transition 
 from Brahmanism to Buddhism, the transition from 
 Judaism to Christianity, and the transition from 
 Paganism to Mediaevalism, are each separate in-
 
 Introductory. 1 3 
 
 stances exhibiting few analogies in their conditions 
 and circumstances. Yet in each of these instances 
 the result has been the same. The new form of 
 culture, coming under the guise of revolution, has 
 really erected itself on the basis of the old, and 
 has effected its conquest over the minds of men 
 not by obliterating but by transmuting the labours 
 of its predecessor. 
 
 Now what is the relevancy of such a study to 
 the subject we have in hand .'' It clearly lies in 
 the fact that the considerations here advanced are 
 fitted to remove a preliminary prejudice to the 
 investigation of that subject. It is a very popular 
 notion that every attempt to reconcile the culture 
 of our age with the faith of past ages is in its 
 very nature a recoil from the spirit of the age. 
 If it be so, we can only come to one conclusion — • 
 that there must be an essential difference between 
 the spirit of the nineteenth century and the spirit 
 of every other century and epoch that the world 
 has known. In all previous periods of human 
 history, the first aim of the spirit of every age 
 was to unite itself to the culture of the past ; and 
 the compliance with that tendency, so far from 
 being a sign of recoil, was an indication of sym- 
 pathy with contemporaneous movements. Is there 
 anything in the circumstances of the nineteenth 
 century which should reverse our judgment on this 
 matter .'' Is there any cause which in the nature
 
 1 4 Can tJie Old Faith live zvith tJic Neiv ? 
 
 of things should render the culture of our age 
 more revolutionary than the culture of its prede- 
 cessors ? If there be such a cause, it is only fair 
 that it should be stated and examined. The mere 
 fact that other periods have followed a different 
 law, will of itself give no warrant for holding that 
 the nineteenth century is bound to be reconcilia- 
 tory to the faith of other centuries. But, on the 
 other hand, it must be shown that there is ground 
 for such a difference. It must be shown that the 
 nineteenth century has more right to be revolu- 
 tionary than preceding epochs. There is only one 
 ground on which such a right could be established. 
 If it could be proved that our age has arriv^ed at 
 any new discovery which is fitted to revolutionise 
 the beliefs of past ages, our modern life would 
 then legitimately occupy a quite exceptional posi- 
 tion in the history of culture. It would have a 
 right to consider itself in the light of a new de- 
 parture. It would have a claim to regard itself 
 as standing on the boundary line between two 
 worlds. It would be entitled to present to each 
 of these worlds a different front. To the world 
 of the future it would rightly offer the hand of 
 alliance, for it would see in itself the pioneer and 
 prophet of the coming age. To the world of the 
 past, on the other hand, it would with equal pro- 
 priety present the front of antagonism, for it would 
 see in that world the accumulated result of ages
 
 Introductory. 1 5 
 
 of error which the advent of its own Hght would 
 be commissioned to dispel. 
 
 All this, we say, would be the legitimate con- 
 clusion from the fact that the nineteenth century 
 had made any discovery in the field of nature 
 which was fitted to exert a modifying tendency 
 on old beliefs. Now it is precisely on this ground 
 that the present age has been tempted to assume 
 an antagonistic attitude towards the result of past 
 ages. It believes itself to be in possession of a 
 view of nature which past ages had not. It looks 
 upon itself as the repository of a secret which was 
 hid from its predecessors — a secret whose divulg- 
 ence is calculated to render nugatory all that these 
 predecessors have thought. It would be a great 
 mistake to imagine that the belief of our age in 
 the possession of this secret is to it uniformly a 
 source of joy. It is not too much to say that in 
 the large majority of cases it is fraught with the 
 deepest pain. With all the optimism that prevails 
 in the minds of some scientists, there is no reason 
 to question the fact that the radical revolt from 
 the faith of the past is at best contemplated only 
 as a painful necessity. There are probably few 
 men of those who believe themselves to be in 
 possession of a revolutionary secret, who do not 
 at times cast back a wistful glance towards that 
 far country from which their secret has severed 
 them ; probably few who would not in their hearts
 
 1 6 Can ihe Old Faith live zvitJi the Nnu ? 
 
 rejoice if some second discovery could be made, 
 which should enable them to hold the new with- 
 out rejecting the old. We have, therefore, no 
 right to represent men of science as the personal 
 antagonists of the old faith, even where their 
 opinions are diametrically opposed to that faith. 
 Their opinions are, in most cases, the greatest 
 burdens they have to bear, and they bear them 
 as burdens. They are the victims to their own 
 secret, the martyrs to the supposed discovery 
 which they themselves have made. A light has 
 broken over the fields of nature which seems to 
 them incompatible with other lights, and in the 
 spirit of stern duty they have left all and followed 
 it. But they have not left all with joy; they have 
 not abandoned the past without regret. They, 
 like the Hebrew patriarch, may hope yet to find 
 a land flowing with milk and honey, but they 
 cannot forget that in exchange for that hope they 
 are sacrificing what was once a possession. 
 
 It is then a mistaken view of the office of modern 
 apologetics to regard it as an attack to be directed 
 against men of science. We feel convinced that 
 the most advanced evolutionists of the present day 
 would hail the advent of any light which should 
 reveal a place for the religious consciousness with- 
 in that system of nature which they have been 
 compelled to make their own. W^e feel convinced 
 that by the large majority of such thinkers a
 
 Introductory. 17 
 
 revelation of this sort would be regarded not as an 
 antagonist but as an ally. There was a time, 
 indeed, when men of science exhibited a personal 
 hostility to the leaders of religious thought, but 
 the fault lay with the religious leaders. Scholastic 
 theology claimed the empire not only over the 
 field of religion but over the field of nature, and 
 every natural explorer who claimed to discover 
 what the Church had not discovered was looked 
 upon in the light of an usurper. That time has 
 now passed away. The eyes of all men, whether 
 in the world of religion or in the world of science, 
 are directed with eager wistfulness towards the 
 field of nature. No modern theologian would 
 attempt to close his eyes to the fact, that the 
 revelations made to the human mind from this 
 quarter have been lately of the most startling kind. 
 Whether he accepts or does not accept all the 
 conclusions of the modern scientist, he feels himself 
 bound to acknowledge that conclusions which have 
 obtained the inipriiiiatur of such distinguished 
 names may at the very least possibly be true. He 
 knows also that to prove them to be untrue would 
 require long centuries. Under these circumstances, 
 what is the true course for the modern theologian .-' 
 He sees prevailing in scientific circles a theory 
 which he himself is neither able to affirm nor to 
 deny. The facts at first hand are not before him ; 
 he requires to take them on trust. The inferences 
 
 B
 
 1 8 Can tlic Old Faith live loith the Nezv ? 
 
 from these facts may appear to him to be still 
 awaiting some confirmatory link, but he knows 
 that for that link he will probably have to wait 
 long-. The question is, What shall he do in the 
 meantime? Shall he suspend his judgment on 
 matters of previous faith until more scientific light 
 shall manifest itself? That would in all probability 
 be equivalent to suspending his religious judgment 
 for ever. Is there no other course open to him ? Is 
 there any means by which he may avoid a polemical 
 attitude towards science on the one hand or an ag- 
 nostic attitude towards religion on the other, where- 
 by he may preserve at once his reverence for 
 scientific research and his devotion to those doc- 
 trines which have constituted his religious faith ? 
 There is one such means available to the modern 
 theologian. The personal determination of the 
 truth or fallacy of scientific statements of facts is, 
 as we have said, beyond him, and investigation in 
 this sphere is therefore to him impossible. But let 
 the theologian begin by taking for granted the 
 inferences of science, by assuming that the conclu- 
 sions at which he has arrived have become recog- 
 nised laws of nature. He will then be in a position 
 to consider the real question, and the only question 
 with which in this matter he has any concern — 
 What efifcct will the establishment of these con- 
 clusions exert upon the old belief? to what extent 
 will it modify, in what measure shall it overthrow,
 
 Introductory. 19 
 
 the religious conclusions of the past ? This, we 
 say, is the real attitude in which modern theology 
 should approach modern science. Assuming for 
 the sake of argument that its conclusions are true, 
 it should limit itself to the inquiry what these 
 conclusions amount to. In following such a line 
 of investigation, theology will have on its side the 
 sympathy of men of science. Its apologetic aspect 
 will be completely separated from any polemical 
 attitude. It will take its seat where men of science 
 sit — 'at the feet of nature. It will recognise its 
 mission to be identical with the mission of science 
 — that of an interpreter of nature. And if theology 
 shall find that the conclusion to which nature is 
 supposed to point would not, even if established, 
 militate against her ancient faith, if she shall find 
 that the need for a supernatural element in nature 
 has not been lessened by the circuit of the suns, she 
 will arrive at a peace and calm which will make 
 waiting easy. She will be able to weigh impar- 
 tially all announcements of scientific discovery, 
 because she shall have already concluded that no 
 amount of discovery in the field of natural Evolu- 
 tion can dispense with the necessity for a Presence 
 and a Power which evolves. 
 
 Now we have said that in the view of our leading 
 scientists there is a preliminary obstacle to the very 
 attempt at such a reconciliation, — that the spirit of 
 our age believes itself even against its will to be
 
 20 Can the Old Faith live ivith the Neiv ? 
 
 bound to oppose the spirit of past ages. The 
 ground on which our age feels this necessity resting 
 upon it is its belief that it has arrived at a truth 
 to which other epochs were strangers. That truth 
 is the universal and unqualified dominion of law 
 throughout all phenomena of the visible and in- 
 visible universe. The history of the progress of 
 science has been the history of the progress of 
 man's ability to find the traces of law in nature. 
 There was a time when man looked at the facts 
 of nature as a series of isolated events without 
 sequence and without connection ; that was the 
 time when he had found no trace of law. By-and- 
 by there broke upon him the conviction that there 
 w'ere certain departments of nature whose changes 
 were not arbitrary but periodical, and whose mani- 
 festations must therefore be referred to the oper- 
 ation of some fixed principle. Even yet, how- 
 ever, it did not occur to him to include in this 
 domain of law the great and startling events of 
 nature ; he limited its sphere to the things which 
 he called commonplace. The rain and the sun- 
 shine might be linked to natural causes, but the 
 thunderstorm, the hurricane, and the earthquake 
 must still be regarded as preternatural influences. 
 Then came a third stage in which these preter- 
 natural influences ceased to be preternatural, — in 
 which thunder and hurricane and earthquake 
 became themselves events whose causes could be
 
 Introductory. 2 1 
 
 determined as easily as the rain and the sunshine. 
 Lastly, this nineteenth century has brought a yet 
 more exhaustive view of tlie universality of law ; 
 it has come by the discovery of that doctrine called 
 the correlation of forces. That doctrine has not 
 only abolished the distinction between great and 
 small, but it has broken down the middle wall of 
 partition which at one time was supposed to render 
 the acts of the mind wholly independent of bod- 
 ily influences. It has established the fact that be- 
 tween the life-force and the other forces of nature 
 there is going on a constant action and reaction, so 
 that they can no longer be regarded as occupying 
 independent provinces, and the result has been 
 that the domain of natural law has threatened to 
 extend itself beyond the boundaries of nature, and 
 to claim a sovereignty over that empire which has 
 always been allotted to the rule of a spiritual 
 agency. 
 
 Now the effect of all this has been that it has 
 seemed to narrow, and ultimately threatened to 
 destroy, the sphere of religion. Religion is essen- 
 tially based upon the belief in the existence of 
 something which transcends the world. It is not 
 difficult to see that if the domain of natural law 
 were to be extended universally and to be stretched 
 out beyond phenomena, there would in the nature of 
 things be no further possibility for the existence of 
 religion. Religion is based upon the belief that
 
 22 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 there is a Presence behind law', a Presence which 
 gives to law at once its existence and its vindica- 
 tion. If we adopt the view that there is no room 
 for such a Presence, if we deny that there is any- 
 where in the universe of being aught that transcends 
 law, we have thereby committed ourselves to the 
 position that the principle which regulates nature 
 is a purely mechanical principle, and that the 
 actions and events of nature are the product of a 
 blind necessity. It is in this sense that the idea of 
 religion is still bound up with the idea of miracle. 
 We call that miraculous which transcends the order 
 of nature ; we ought not to limit the word to that 
 which supersedes the order of nature. To supersede 
 the order of nature is to violate it, but to trans- 
 cend it may be to manifest it. If we believe in the 
 existence of a Power behind nature, then the mani- 
 festation of nature itself is a revelation of that 
 which transcends it, because it is a revelation of the 
 existence of that Power which lies at the back of 
 that order which it originates. Miracle, therefore, is 
 involved in the notion of any religion. It cannot 
 be escaped either by the Deist, the Theist, or the 
 Pantheist. Whosoever believes that the laws of 
 nature are the expression of a life behind them, has 
 tlicreby signed his confession of faith in the exist- 
 ence of a perpetual miracle, for he has acknowledged 
 his belief in the existence of a Power which, by his 
 own admission, transcends all that he sees. The
 
 Litrodiictory. 23 
 
 question then narrows itself to this, Can our age 
 any longer believe in miracle — in the existence of 
 that which transcends nature ? If it can, religion 
 is still a possibility ; if it cannot, religion must 
 cease to be an element in human thought. This is 
 the preliminary question in any inquiry concerning 
 the relation of the old faith to the new. If this 
 question be answered in the affirmative, we have a 
 right to proceed in such an investigation ; if it be 
 answered in the negative, our way is for ever barred 
 on the very threshold of the inquiry. We shall 
 accordingly devote the following chapter to an 
 examination of this important subject.
 
 24 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE PLACE FOR FAITH IN THE SYSTEM 
 OF NATURE. 
 
 The writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews defines 
 faith to be the evidence of things not seen ; he 
 declares it to be that faculty whereby we under- 
 stand " that things which are seen were not made 
 of things which do appear." The definition is a 
 most remarkable because a most philosophical 
 one ; it is comprehensive in its very simplicity. 
 It states that the essence of the religious faculty 
 is its power to discover that there is something 
 which transcends nature, — that the very existence 
 of a visible order presupposes the existence of 
 something which is not visible. We should not 
 have been surprised to find that a period so 
 primitive and unscientific as that in which the 
 writer to the Hebrews wrote should have given 
 birth to a very difi'erent definition of the word 
 faith. We should naturally have expected to 
 liear him say, " I^y faith we understand that the
 
 Place for Faith in the System of Nature. 25 
 
 word of God has power to break through the 
 visible order of things." Such a definition of the 
 province of faith would have been harmonious 
 with the view popularly entertained of the nature 
 of miracle. A miracle, in the popular use of the 
 word, is that which either violates or suspends a 
 law of nature. The supernatural is here contem- 
 plated as consisting in antagonism to the natural. 
 Viewed in this light, an age of scientific law must 
 prove destructive to the existence of religion, for 
 just in proportion as violations of nature cease to 
 be conceivable, will the evidence for such super- 
 naturalism become fainter and more inadequate. 
 But so far from basing his belief in the super- 
 natural on the possibility of seeing changes in the 
 order of nature, the writer to the Hebrews pro- 
 fesses to find his evidence for the supernatural 
 in the order of nature itself; it is through the 
 things that are seen that he reaches his con- 
 viction of the existence of that which is not 
 seen. It is not by an interruption of the visible 
 order that he comes to the recognition of a Power 
 and Presence behind it : on the contrary, it is 
 by the recognition of the visible order itself that 
 he is impelled to recognise the being of a Power 
 not itself; it is by the sight of the visible order 
 that he finds it to be inadequate to the explana- 
 tion of its own existence. 
 
 We have alluded here to the definition of the
 
 26 Can tJie Old Faitli live ivith the New ? 
 
 supernatural given by the writer to the Hebrews, 
 because we are disposed to think that it is the 
 only exhaustive definition that ever has been 
 given. By this definition, in our opinion, the 
 modern belief in the supernatural must stand or 
 fall. If we define the supernatural to be that 
 which violates the law of nature, we have defined 
 not the supernatural but only a mode of super- 
 naturalism. If any such violation of law were 
 observed, it would of course be evidence for the 
 existence of a Power behind nature, for that which 
 can violate a law must transcend the law which it 
 violates. But in point of fact it becomes more 
 and more evident in modern times that the system 
 of nature as now constituted does not admit of 
 such a mode of supernaturalism. The question 
 is not, whether a supernatural Power could violate 
 the laws which He has made. There is not a 
 scientific man in the world who would for a 
 moment deny that if there be a Power which 
 transcends nature, that Power can at any time 
 alter nature. It could not even be said that such 
 an alteration would be an unscientific act, for it is 
 ever scientifically a natural principle that the greater 
 should dominate the less. But the question with 
 which the modern scientist has to do is not 
 whether a supreme Power could, but whether in 
 point of fact He docs, interfere with the sequence 
 of natural law. It is not with him a question of
 
 Place for Faith in the System of Nature. 27 
 
 philosophy but a question of observation. He 
 sees a thunderstorm, and he asks, whence came 
 it ? He would not for a moment dispute that if 
 there be a Divine Power behind nature, this 
 thunder might be His direct voice. But what 
 the man of science asks is not what the thunder 
 might be, but what it is. He asks whether he 
 can refer it to any antecedent causes in nature 
 itself; and when he finds that he can, he inquires 
 no further. He is absolved from investigating what 
 any power could do, by discovering what the power 
 existent in nature has actually done. 
 
 The scientific spirit, then, is opposed to that 
 sense of the word "miracle" which regards it as 
 a violation of the law of nature by a Power 
 behind nature. But there is another sense of 
 the word " miracle " which looks upon it, not 
 as a violation of law, but as a manifestation that 
 the law does proceed from something that is 
 behind it, — a revelation that it is not self-con- 
 stituted, but constituted by a Divine Power. 
 This is the view of the supernatural which is 
 adopted by the writer to the Hebrews, and the 
 view which we believe to be the deepest and the 
 soundest. The supernatural is here regarded not 
 as that which breaks through nature, but simply 
 as that which lies above nature. It is here looked 
 upon not as something which occasionally manifests 
 itself by the destruction or the suspension of the
 
 28 Call the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 laws which it has made, but as something which 
 reveals itself always and everywhere in the exe- 
 cuting and in the sustaining of these laws. In 
 the view of this ancient writer, faith is not a 
 state of mind which is to be called up only for 
 special occasions, for startling events or for sudden 
 catastrophes ; it is a state of mind which is to 
 exist habitually and unceasingly. And the reason 
 why it is to exist habitually and unceasingly is 
 a remarkable one : it is not because faith is to 
 avert its eyes from the search for the supernatural, 
 but because it is to see the supernatural in every- 
 thing. To faith, as here defined, all things alike 
 are to be revelations of the supernatural ; every 
 event is in this sense to be startling, every 
 sight in this sense miraculous. The object of 
 faith is to be the supernatural in the natural, 
 or rather behind the natural. Its materials are 
 to be derived not from that which sets aside but 
 from that which vindicates the existing law, and 
 it is to find its evidence for the unseen and eternal 
 in its very study of the limits of the seen and 
 temporal. 
 
 Now the question is. Can this view of faith stand 
 the test of modern times ? We have said that the 
 conception of miracle which regards it as a viola- 
 tion of law is a thought inconsistent with the .sys- 
 tem of nature expounded by modern science : can 
 the same be affirmed of that other conception of
 
 Place for Faith i?i the System of Nature. 29 
 
 miracle which regards it not as a violation but as 
 a transcending of law? Is there anything in the 
 facts of modern science which militates against 
 that view of nature expounded by the writer to 
 the Hebrews, whereby the visible order is made 
 the expression of an invisible order, and faith finds 
 her province in discovering that the things which 
 are seen were not made of things which do appear ? 
 It will not be maintained by any scientist that 
 there is. The most advanced evolutionism of the 
 nineteenth century does not contend that the facts 
 of nature are adverse to the belief that there is 
 something which transcends nature. The most 
 that such evolutionists do contend for is, that we 
 caimot know from nature whether there be or be 
 not anything behind it ; it is on this ground that 
 in all religious questions they take the name of 
 Agnostics. The most advanced unbelief of our 
 day does not go so far as to say, There is no God ; 
 it would hold such a statement to be in the highest 
 degree unscientific. The doctrine of Agnosticism 
 is the doctrine of human ignorance ; its leading 
 article is the duty of humility. It warns man to 
 affirm nothing and to deny nothing concerning 
 that which transcends experience. It does not say 
 that there is nothing which transcends experience, 
 nor yet does it say that there is anything ; it main- 
 tains that the existence or the non-existence of 
 such a supersensuous region is alike unknowable,
 
 30 Can the Old Faith live tvith the N'eiu ? 
 
 and that being unknowable, it is not a subject 
 either for behef or disbehef. Under these circum- 
 stances the Agnostic recommends to the minds of 
 men an ignoring of the whole question. He ad- 
 vises them to confine themselves to the limits of 
 the positive, by which he understands the limits of 
 the five senses. He cautions them not to attempt 
 to go beyond the range of experience, to keep 
 within that margin which nature has prescribed to 
 human knowledge, and to avoid inquiring whether 
 in the infinite possibilities of the universe there be 
 or be not any higher knowledge than the human. 
 
 It will be evident from this that the religious 
 belief in something which transcends nature is not 
 in our age called to contend with any positive 
 argument to the contrary ; it is only called to 
 contend with the assertion that there is no ground 
 for argument on either side. Modern belief is no 
 longer met by ^-//j-belief, but simply by ?^;/belief: 
 that which it has to encounter is not a positive 
 but a negative. Agnosticism does not say, You 
 are believing in a fallacy ; it merely says, You are 
 believing in something which cannot be verified. 
 It asks, What is the use of opening up a region of 
 faith when we have no evidence that it exists any- 
 where outside of our own imagining, and when all 
 the time wc have at the very door of our being a 
 region of practical certainty accessible to observa- 
 tion and verifiable in actual experience } This, then,
 
 Place for Fait Jl in the System of Nature. 31 
 
 is the real problem with which we have here to 
 deal — whether there be or be not any ground for 
 such a faith as was held by the writer to the 
 Hebrews ? The theology of our age is not called, 
 like the theology of the last century, to answer 
 objections ; no objections are made. It is not 
 called to prove that there are fallacies in the argu- 
 ment for atheism ; no argument is offered for 
 atheism — the Agnostic would deem an attempt to 
 disprove God as contrary to true science as an 
 attempt to prove Him. What the theology of our 
 age has to do is to discover some positive ground 
 for the continuance of a belief in that which tran- 
 scends nature. It has to meet Agnosticism by 
 proving that something can be known beyond the 
 things of experience ; or, to speak more correctly, 
 by proving that there is a region beyond the 
 things of experience — a region of whose essential 
 nature we are, indeed, in ignorance, but of whose 
 existence we have the most satisfactory evidence. 
 
 How is this to be proved ? Shall theology refute 
 Agnosticism by appealing to itself.'' that would, 
 indeed, be reasoning in a circle. It will not do 
 for the theologian to take refuge in that sense of 
 mystery which he himself experiences in the study 
 of Divine things. The A"-nostic will tell him that 
 the Divine things which have created his sense ot 
 mystery are themselves in all probability the crea- 
 tion of his own fancy and the product of his own
 
 32 Can the Old Faith live ivith the N'ciu ? 
 
 brain. He will tell him that he has first built the 
 wall and then tried to push it down ; that the thing 
 which now transcends his power is itself the result 
 of his power. Such a retort on the part of the 
 Agnostic would, from his point of view, be quite 
 legitimate : denying as he does that there is any 
 evidence for the existence of a Power which tran- 
 scends experience, he cannot, in reason, be ex- 
 pected to acknowledge the legitimacy of a sense 
 of mystery which is professedly created by the 
 contemplation of that Power. Here, then, we 
 seem to be stopped on the very threshold, and 
 to be debarred from the right of calling any wit- 
 nesses whatever. Religious faith has in all ages 
 felt that the object which it worships is one which 
 transcends experience ; but who is to tell, or by 
 what evidence is it to be told, that this religious 
 faith itself was not the child of a poetic imagina- 
 tion .^ If the theologian is to meet the Agnostic, it 
 must be on other and wider ground — on ground 
 which, for the time, shall be common to both, and 
 in which both shall agree to find the issue by 
 which their creed shall stand or fall. 
 
 Now there is such a common ground on which 
 the theologian and the Agnostic may meet — the 
 ground of that very Positivism on which the latter 
 professes to base his whole system. For if we 
 look at the matter a little more closely, we shall 
 find that the necessity for faith in something which
 
 Place for FaitJi iu tJic System of Nature. 3 3 
 
 transcends experience, is by no means a merely 
 religious necessity. It is popularly thought that 
 faith in the supernatural belongs peculiarly to the 
 world of religion ; in point of fact it belongs 
 to every thinking man in ev^ery department of 
 thought. If the believer in a God became the 
 heir to certain intellectual difficulties which the 
 non-believer in a God avoided, it would become a 
 very serious question whether Atheism were not 
 the more excellent way. But the truth is, the 
 believer in a God does not become heir to a single 
 intellectual difficulty which does not press with at 
 least equal force on the non-believer. Sir William 
 Hamilton has remarked that every difficulty in 
 theology may be paralleled by an equal difficulty 
 in philosophy ; we may go further and say, that 
 every difficulty in theology may be paralleled by 
 an equal difficulty in Positivism, which is the ne- 
 gation of philosophy. Bishop Butler wrote his 
 ' Analogy ' to prove that every argument which 
 can be used against Christianity can be used with 
 equal force against Deism. Such a work was 
 thoroughly well-timed in an age where the un- 
 believers in Christianity were believers in Deism, 
 But in our age the men who have given up Chris- 
 tianity have, at the same time and for the same 
 reason, given up Deism ; they see in both these 
 religions the worship of a Power which transcends 
 nature, and they cannot find evidence for the 
 
 C
 
 34 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 existence of such a Power. For them, therefore, 
 there is needed a new Analogy — an Analogy which 
 shall describe the relation not between the belief 
 in Christianity and the belief in Deism, but be- 
 tween the belief in any religion and the belief in 
 no religion. There is wanted a work which will 
 show that the denial of a Divine existence involves 
 intellectual difficulties precisely the same in kind 
 and infinitely more intense in degree than the 
 intellectual difficulties created by the acceptance 
 of such an existence — difficulties which must com- 
 pel the Positivist to find in nature herself that 
 supernatural element which he has refused to 
 recognise as existing beyond nature. 
 
 If such a book of Analogy were written it would 
 lead, we think, to a very remarkable conclusion — 
 the necessity for belief in miracle as a first prin- 
 ciple of thought. Mr Hume says that we have no 
 experience of a miracle ; it seems to us that the 
 sense of the miraculous is just the deepest expe- 
 rience of our lives. If it be asked in what sense 
 Ave here use the word " miraculous," our answer is, 
 it depends on what department of nature we are 
 to consider. If a man accepts some religion as 
 a solution of the universe, he will be compelled, 
 indeed, to recognise a miracle, but only a miracle 
 of the milder sort — a Power that transeends nature, 
 but not necessarily a Power that violates nature. 
 If, on the other hand, a man should refuse to ac-
 
 Place for Faith in the System of Nature. 35 
 
 cept any religion as a solution of the universe, 
 and should insist instead on studying the universe 
 itself, he will require to accept a miracle of the 
 most pronounced description — a miracle which 
 shall consist not in the mere transcendence of law 
 but in the actual violation of law, and which shall 
 make a demand upon his faith in comparison with 
 which the requirement of any religion would be 
 small and gentle. 
 
 To bring out this point, let us consider the 
 alternatives which are open to a man who seeks 
 a solution of the universe. These alternatives are 
 three. He may say that the world never began 
 to be — in other words, that its duration has been 
 eternal. He may say that the earliest forms of 
 matter and life sprang up spontaneously and be- 
 came the progenitors of other forms — in other 
 words, that the present system of things is, in its 
 origin, the product of chance. He may say, finally, 
 that the present system of things is the product 
 of a Power that transcends it, and that therefore 
 the first principle of the universe is a Divine 
 Intelligence. These are the three alternatives, 
 and, as Mr Herbert Spencer^ admits, the only 
 alternatives which are open to him who seeks a 
 solution of the universe. Even the Agnostic must 
 hold that one or other of these is the explanation 
 of the origin of things. It is impossible that all 
 
 ■^ First Principles, § il.
 
 36 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the Nezv ? 
 
 of them can be false ; it is impossible that if all 
 of them were false any other solution of the 
 problem could be given. We shall hereafter show 
 that the first and the third are not mutually ex- 
 clusive ; meantime we have simply to point out 
 that if the problem of the world's origin is ever 
 to be solved, it must be solved somewhere within 
 the limit of these three alternatives. 
 
 But we have now to observe that the acceptance 
 of any one of these alternatives is tantamount 
 to the acceptance of a miracle ; one must be true, 
 and yet any one is a choice of the supernatural. 
 Let us glance at each of them separately, and let 
 us begin with that which in the field of Agnosti- 
 cism finds the most general acceptance — the theory 
 that the world had no beginning. 
 
 Let us first distinctly understand what is the 
 real issue here involved. It is the doctrine of 
 evolution that there never has been an absolute 
 beginning. That doctrine is commonly supposed 
 to constitute the main difference between Theism 
 and Atheism, but in truth there is not a theist in 
 the world who would not gladly subscribe to it. 
 Let no one imagine that in denying an absolute 
 beginning, the doctrine of evolution is committing 
 any religious heresy. The first principle of every 
 religious believer is just the denial of an absolute 
 beginning, just the assertion that there never was 
 a time when absolute nothingness reigned. The
 
 Place for Faith in the System of Nature. ij 
 
 surest truth in the universe is the knowledge that 
 there never was a period in which something did 
 not exist ; all science and all religion must alike 
 concur in this. The question between evolution 
 and theology, where such a question is started, 
 does not lie in the affirmation or denial of an 
 eternal something in the universe ; the existence 
 of such an eternal something is admitted by both. 
 But the question begins where this admission ends. 
 What is this eternal something .'' is it matter or 
 spirit, extension or thought, nature or the super- 
 natural .-' It is here that theology and Agnosticism 
 part asunder. Theology holds that what is eternal 
 in the physical universe must itself be of a nature 
 which transcends the physical ; Agnosticism holds 
 that as we have no right to go beyond the limits 
 of our sensuous experience, we have no right to 
 assume that the thing which has existed from 
 eternity is anything other than the visible order 
 of nature. 
 
 Let us then, for the sake of argument, accept 
 the view of the Agnostic. Let us say that some- 
 thing has existed from all eternity, and that this 
 something is nothing else than the physical nature 
 which our senses now perceive. What we wish to 
 point out is this, that in adopting such a view the 
 Agnostic is flying from Scylla into Charybdis. 
 His reason for choosing the alternative of an 
 eternal physical nature is, his idea that thereby 
 
 )03«8 

 
 38 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the N'ew ? 
 
 he will avoid the supernaturalism of a religious 
 belief: he does avoid it, but he accepts instead 
 the supernaturalism of an irreligious belief. For, 
 let it be distinctly marked that the belief in the 
 independent eternity of the present visible order 
 is, in the most pronounced sense of the term, the 
 acceptance of a miracle. Mr Herbert Spencer 
 himself admits that such a belief is unthinkable. 
 But why is it unthinkable? Is it merely because 
 the idea of eternity is an idea which cannot be 
 represented in the imagination ? That this is not 
 the cause will be evident from the fact that we 
 do not experience the same difficulty in conceiving 
 that the world shall never end, as we do in con- 
 ceiving that the world has never begun. So far 
 from finding the idea of an unending world to be 
 unthinkable, we find it much more difficult to 
 think the contrary — much more difficult to imagine 
 a time when the present system of things shall 
 cease to be. , Now the idea of eternity is as much 
 involved in the conception of an unending world 
 as in the conception of an unbeginning world ; and 
 if that idea does not render the former conception 
 unthinkable, there is no reason whatever why it 
 should so affect the latter. Yet the fact remains, 
 that while we have no difficulty, so far as imagina- 
 tion is concerned, in conceiving that the present 
 system of things shall never end, we have a dif- 
 ficulty amounting to the impossible in conceiv-
 
 Place for Faith in the System of Nature. 39 
 
 ing that the present system of things has never 
 begun. 
 
 We repeat the question then, What is it that 
 renders this idea unthinkable ? We have seen that 
 it is not our inability to represent the notion of 
 eternity, for we have the same inability in relation 
 to an eternal future, and yet we find no difficulty 
 in conceiving such a future. Why is it that when 
 we try to conceive this world as having had an 
 eternal past, we are forced to abandon the attempt 
 in despair ? The reason lies here : to conceive this 
 world as having had an eternal past is to conceive 
 a violation of law as now established ; in other 
 words, it is to believe in a miracle of the most 
 pronounced type. Let us try to make this clear. 
 This w^orld, considered as an object of sense, is 
 simply a series of changes, or as the Positivist 
 would put it, a succession of antecedents and con- 
 sequents. If this world has been eternal in the 
 past, we have then the phenomenon of a series of 
 changes going back into infinitude. This is equiv- 
 alent to saying that we have a chain consisting of 
 an infinite number of links, not one of which rests 
 upon anything ; which, again, is tantamount to say- 
 ing that there is no chain at all. Not one of the 
 links has an adequate antecedent, not one of them 
 is either self-supporting or supported by anything 
 else. The denial of a first link is equivalent to the 
 affirmation that something is suspended on nothing,
 
 40 Can t]ic Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 or that a series of consequents exists without any 
 antecedent. Now we are not here contending 
 whether this conception be or be not false ; but we 
 contend that, whether false or true, it is the idea of 
 a violated law, of a miracle, of a supernatural ele- 
 ment introduced into nature. We contend that the 
 man who accepts this conception as an article of 
 belief is thereby committing himself to a faith in 
 the supernatural, compared to which the faith of a 
 religious man is small and insignificant. He is 
 going far beyond Agnosticism itself. The Agnos- 
 tic never goes further than to say that no true 
 cause has yet been discovered in the world. But 
 the man who holds this belief in an eternal regress 
 of physical changes asserts not merely that no cause 
 has been discovered but that no cause exists. He 
 declares in effect that a series of phenomena which 
 are transparently dependent and incapable of self- 
 existence, have owed their life to another series of 
 phenomena whose dependence is equally trans- 
 parent, and whose incapacity for self-existence is 
 not less manifest. And in committing himself to 
 this doctrine he has committed himself emphatically 
 to a confession oi faitJi ; it is only on the ground 
 of faith that he can for a moment hold it. It is 
 a violation of every law of all philosophy, not 
 excepting Positive philosophy. It is a violation 
 of every principle of causality — even of that 
 Agnostic principle which can see in the cause only
 
 Place for Faith hi tJic System of Nature. 4 1 
 
 an adequate antecedent. It is, in short, a recog- 
 nition of the fact that there is in the natural an 
 element which is supernatural, and that the things 
 which meet the eye have not owed their being to 
 "things which do appear." 
 
 This brings us to the second alternative — that 
 which proposes to regard the world as having had 
 its origin in a spontaneous accident ; in other 
 words, as having come by chance. Over this 
 alternative we need spend no time, because the 
 conclusion to which it points is transparent on the 
 very surface ; it is professedly the announcement 
 of a miracle. It is admitted by Professor Huxley 
 that to believe in the spontaneous generation of 
 life is an act oi faith. He himself professes to have 
 that faith ; but he candidly acknowledges that he 
 has it in direct contradiction to all the facts of 
 present experience — that if spontaneous genera- 
 tion ever happened, it must have occurred under 
 conditions which no longer exist. The belief that 
 life at one time arose spontaneously from dead 
 matter, is itself the belief that dead matter at one 
 time possessed a power which it does not now 
 possess ; in other words, a power which, in relation 
 to the pr^ent system of things, is strictly super- 
 natural. To admit that at any time matter pos- 
 sessed such a power, or to assert that at any 
 moment there was introduced into the universe a 
 single chance movement, is to destroy at one sweep
 
 42 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 the whole doctrine of evolution. The doctrine of 
 evolution cannot be held consistently by any one 
 who is willing to concede that at any solitary 
 moment of the infinite past there was a single 
 intervention of the hand of chance. Professor 
 Huxley itiay hold, by what he calls an act of 
 philosophic faith, that there was one moment in 
 which life sprang up spontaneously, but in so doing 
 he has committed himself to the guidance of faith 
 for ever. That one moment, if it ever existed, 
 has destroyed all the moments of scientific evolu- 
 tion. It has broken that chain which professed to 
 be an infinite and an irrefragable chain. It has 
 introduced into the universe, midway in its career, 
 a new and unheard-of element — an element unlike 
 all that has preceded it, and unaccounted for by 
 aught that has accompanied it. It has introduced 
 it suddenly, unexpectedly, without cause or ade- 
 quate antecedent, by what is equivalent to a 
 creation out of nothing, which yet at the same 
 time is a creation without hands. The amount of 
 faith in the supernatural required for such a belief 
 as this is simply appalling. The man who can 
 embrace it must have a special gift of faith. It is 
 the acceptance of a doctrine which is confessedly 
 contrary to all scientific experience and avowedly 
 opposed to all mental intuition ; and, what renders 
 the case more illogical still, it is the acceptance 
 of a doctrine which is pronouncedly supernatural,
 
 Place for Faith i>i tJie System of Nature. 43 
 
 with a view to avoid the supernaturalism of another 
 creed which is far less pronounced than its own. 
 
 For this leads us to the third of those forms of 
 solution by which it has been proposed to account 
 for the existence of the universe ; it is that which 
 regards the visible order of things as the result 
 of a spiritual and creative Intelligence. This is 
 the view which is commonly considered as the 
 distinctively supernatural explanation. We have 
 seen that this is a grand mistake. We have seen 
 that every attempt either to explain the origin 
 of the universe or to leave its origin unexplained, 
 must alike end in the recognition of a supernatural 
 element. We now go on to make good what we 
 have already suggested — that so far from being the 
 distinctively supernatural explanation, this theory 
 of a creative Intelligence is quite the least super- 
 natural of the three attempted solutions. It in- 
 volves a miracle indeed, but not a miracle of the 
 same class as that involved by the others. The 
 doctrine that the world has existed from eternity, 
 and the doctrine that the world has sprung into 
 existence spontaneously, are alike beliefs which 
 involve a violation of the law of nature as now 
 established. But the doctrine that this world owes 
 its origin to the work of a higher creative Intel- 
 ligence does not involve a violation of the law of 
 nature ; it is only a miracle of transcendence. We 
 are aware that this is the very point which has
 
 44 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 frequently been made a subject of dispute. Mr 
 Herbert Spencer, as Kant had done before him, 
 labours to show that the conception of a supreme 
 Intelligence is just as unthinkable as any of those 
 other conceptions by which man has attempted to 
 account for his own being. We shall try to repre- 
 sent as clearly and as strongly as possible the line 
 of argument by which this charge of unthinkable- 
 ness has generally been supported. 
 
 We start, it is said, with the notion that every 
 existence must have a cause. We come, on this 
 ground, to the conclusion that the world cannot 
 be eternal, and that therefore there must be some 
 infinite Intelligence to account for those wonder- 
 ful phenomena which we see around us. So far 
 all is well. But the moment we have found this 
 Cause for our physical universe, we immediately 
 proceed to violate that very principle of causality 
 by which we profess to have found Him, We 
 started with the assumption that every existence 
 must have a cause, and on the strength of that 
 assumption we concluded that the world must 
 have a Creator. But, now that we have found the 
 Creator, we do not go on to ask what has caused 
 Hitn ; nay, instead of that we start a new as- 
 sumption — that His existence is self-existent ; in 
 other words, that His being is without a cause. 
 The theologian is here charged with the most 
 flagrant breach of logic. He is asked why he
 
 Place for Faith in the System of Nature. 45 
 
 affirms a principle of causality in order to find a 
 God, and then denies it in order to make his God 
 eternal. If he is willing to arrest the principle of 
 causality at any place or time, why should he not 
 arrest it in the universe itself? If there can be a 
 God without a cause, why should there not be a 
 world without a cause ? If the theologian is will- 
 ing in the highest sphere of existence to deny the 
 necessity that existence must have a cause, where- 
 fore should he not be willing to carry down this 
 principle of denial into its lower and subordinate 
 spheres ; why should he not be content to say that 
 the visible order is itself self-existent ? 
 
 We have stated the argument as strongly as we 
 can in order that it may have all the force which 
 belongs to it. But now we have to point out that, 
 plausible as the reasoning is, it is built upon a 
 mistake. It is quietly taken for granted at the 
 beginning that the fundamental principle of the 
 theologian is, every existence must have a cause. 
 We must emphatically deny that this is a principle 
 either of theology or of metaphysics. The prin- 
 ciple is, not that every existence must have a cause, 
 but that every change must have a cause. If the 
 world in which we live were merely an existence, 
 we should not be warranted in concluding that 
 there must be a principle underlying it. Our reason 
 for concluding that there must be such a principle 
 is the testimony of our experience that the world
 
 46 Can the Old Faith live with the A^rie' ? 
 
 in which we dwell is, so far as we see it, not self- 
 supporting. It is because this world exhibits to us 
 only a succession of changes that we are driven to 
 infer the existence of a power underlying these 
 changes. It by no means follows, however, that 
 when we have discovered such a power, whether it 
 be the God of Theism or the Force of Mr Herbert 
 Spencer, we shall be bound to find a cause for it 
 also. This power, whatever it be, may be change- 
 less in its nature, and, if changeless in its nature, it 
 is not a subject for the principle of causality. 
 
 It is a popular opinion that the mere sight of 
 any existing object is bound to suggest the ques- 
 tion, Who made it ? It seems to us that this is 
 a mistake. If an object were nothing more than 
 existing, it would not to the primitive man offer 
 any such suggestion. The reason why every 
 object around us does suggest such a question is, 
 that in point of fact every object around us is 
 constantly exhibiting change. If, instead of an 
 outward object, we take the consciousness of in- 
 dividual existence itself, we shall see this still more 
 clearly. Let us suppose the case of a man brought 
 into the world at the stage of manhood and with 
 the powers of manhood fully developed ; the very 
 first question he should ask would be this, Where 
 liave I come from .-* He would take it for granted 
 that he had come from somewhere, that he owed 
 his being to the influence of some power beyond
 
 Place for Faith in the System of Nature. 47 
 
 his own. The child in actual life seldom gets the 
 chance of putting that question ; it is told from the 
 very first that God made it, and so reflection on 
 the subject is forestalled. But in the case of our 
 hypothetical man, reflection would anticipate in- 
 formation ; the sense of wonder would be too quick 
 to be forestalled, and the question would come 
 forth, Whence came I .'' But now, why is it that 
 the man would put such a question at all in 
 reflecting on the problem of his own existence .-' 
 Would it be from his conviction that every exist- 
 ence must have a cause outside of itself that he 
 would infer his own life not to be eternal } Not 
 so. His search for a cause of his being would pro- 
 ceed from a very different source — not from an 
 inference at all, but from an actual perception of 
 fact. It would proceed from his consciousness 
 that in point of fact he was not eternal. He 
 would feel instinctively that his present being 
 was the manifestation of a change. He would see 
 behind him a blackness of darkness, a great blank 
 of nothingness, out of which he had come by some 
 process unknown to himself. It would be his 
 sense of a change that would lead him to the con- 
 viction that there must have been somewhere a 
 power to cause the change. Had his memory of 
 the past been unbroken, had he been conscious of 
 no blank in the yesterday, he would assuredly 
 have concluded that his own being was eternal ; but
 
 48 Ca)i the Old Faith live zvitJi the Neiv ? 
 
 when he knows that his consciousness of to-day 
 has come to him as a surprise, he is inevitably 
 forced to the conclusion that it has come to him 
 by another power than his own. 
 
 This, then, is the inference at which we arrive. 
 The third alternative for the solution of the uni- 
 verse is not unthinkable, and it is the only one 
 of the three which is not unthinkable. This is 
 simply, in other terms, to say that it is the least 
 supernatural of the three. It involves only a 
 supernaturalism which transcends the order of 
 nature, not a supernaturalism which violates the 
 order of nature. It sets aside no law, it suspends 
 no principle, it interferes with no portion of the 
 material mechanism ; it simply postulates the fact 
 that behind the material mechanism there is a 
 principle which is immaterial. Leaving, however, 
 this question for the present, we have here simply 
 to refer to that result to which the investigation of 
 this chapter has led us. We have been brought to 
 the inevitable conclusion that there is a place for 
 faith in the system of nature. Nay, to state the 
 conclusion thus is to understate it. What we 
 have found is not simply that there is a place 
 for faith in the order of nature ; it is rather that 
 only through faith is there a place for nature 
 itself. We have examined one by one the solu- 
 tions by which it has been attempted to explain 
 the existence of the universe, and each of these
 
 Place for Faith in the System of Nature. 49 
 
 solutions has yielded us the same result — a limit 
 to the power of natural law. Whether we have 
 considered the hypothesis of the world's eternity, 
 or the doctrine of its spontaneous generation, or 
 the belief in its origination from the hand of an 
 intelligent Creator, we have found equally that 
 the road of experience has come to an end, and 
 that we have been compelled through the rest of 
 our journey to travel by the flight of faith. We 
 have found that each doctrine alike, though not 
 in the same degree, has led to the conclusion 
 that the natural is bounded by the supernatural, 
 and that beyond the sphere of experiment and 
 understanding there lies a region of the super- 
 sensuous and the mystical. We have found, 
 finally, that of the three alternatives, those which 
 demand the most faith are just those which 
 the opponents of supernaturalism have adopted 
 with the view of avoiding the necessity of faith. 
 We have seen that the worshippers of physical 
 law are compelled, by the adoption of either of 
 these creeds, to abandon the inviolability of that 
 very law which they worship ; and that the only 
 belief which saves them from the necessity of 
 beholding a violation of their cherished prin- 
 ciples of nature, is just that faith in a supreme 
 and supernatural Intelligence which, in the sup- 
 posed interest of science, they are making such 
 frantic efforts to gainsay. 
 
 D
 
 50 Can the Old Faith live xvith the Neiv ? 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 IS THE OBJECT OF FAITH KNOWABLE ? 
 
 In the previous chapter we arrived at the con- 
 clusion that the contemplation of nature inevit- 
 ably leads to the recognition of a supernatural 
 element — an element which cannot be avoided by 
 any road we may choose to follow. But when 
 this conclusion has been reached, we have only 
 gained the threshold of another question. To 
 know that there is a supernatural element is one 
 thing ; it is another and a very different thing to 
 know zvhat is that supernatural element. The 
 question which immediately presents itself is this : 
 conceding that there is an object of faith, is it 
 conceivable that this object of faith can ever 
 become an object of knowledge .'* Can we reach, 
 after all, any higher conclusion than the simple 
 fact that we have come to a barred gate .'' No 
 doubt the very recognition of a barred gate 
 proves that there is something on the other side 
 of it, and to this extent it must be granted that
 
 Is the Object of Faith Knoivable ? 5 i 
 
 we have passed beyond Agnosticism. But, then, 
 this extent is only negative ; it is simply the 
 recognition that there is a region beyond our 
 experience into which we are forbidden to travel. 
 The question is. Can this region be known ? 
 Can we reach any other or any further know- 
 ledge of it than the fact that its gates are 
 barred ? Can the supernatural become to us 
 anything more than a negation, anything more 
 than a limit which says to the exercise of human 
 thought, " Hitherto shalt thou go, and no further" ? 
 We do not here inquire whether, in point of fact, 
 the supernatural has or has not revealed itself, or 
 whether, as a matter of history, there is or is 
 not adequate evidence for its revelation ; that is 
 an investigation which belongs specially to the 
 sphere of the theologian. Our inquiry is a more 
 outward and a more preliminary one, and one 
 without the settlement of which the other cannot 
 even be entered upon. We want to consider not 
 whether the supernatural Jias revealed itself, but 
 whether it co7ild reveal itself, to the mind of man. 
 If, as Agnosticism says, there be a great gulf fixed 
 between our human experience and that which 
 transcends experience — if the supernatural be in 
 its very nature the antithesis and contrary of the 
 natural — if there be no possible channel of com- 
 munication by which the idea of a supersensuous 
 world can be imparted to the world of sense, — we
 
 52 Can tJie Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 are precluded on the very threshold from con- 
 sidering the claims of any revelation ; we are de- 
 barred from entertaining for a moment any testi- 
 mony of actual history which declares that, at any 
 time, God made Himself known. 
 
 Now, if there be such an impossibility of the 
 supernatural communing with the natural, it must 
 lie in one or other of two things, — either in the 
 nature of the finite, or in the character of the 
 infinite. If there be an incompatibility between 
 nature and the supernatural, it must consist either 
 in the deficiencies of nature, or in the infinitude of 
 that which lies beyond nature. As both of these 
 positions have been taken by Agnosticism, we 
 propose briefly to consider them each in turn. 
 
 And, first, it is averred that man has no faculty 
 which gives him any knowledge of the supersen- 
 suous. We are told, again and again, that all the 
 powers of the human mind are correlated with 
 certain bodily impressions, and are unable to tran- 
 scend the limits of these impressions. Every idea 
 which enters the mind is an idea limited by the 
 boundaries of earthly experience, and entirely in- 
 capable of soaring beyond that sensuous atmo- 
 sphere which originally gave it birth. It is here 
 that the main diff'erence lies between the Agnostic 
 and the Gnostic — the men of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury who say they do not know, and the men of 
 the second century who said they knew all about
 
 Is tJie Object of FaitJi Knozvablc ? 53 
 
 it. The difiference lies in the fact that the Gnostic 
 beheved himself to possess a special faculty for 
 communing- with Divine things ; the Agnostic 
 denies that he has any faculty which is not ex- 
 clusively concerned with the interpretation of the 
 sensuous and the human. The Gnostic held that 
 there were in the human mind possibilities of a 
 state of ecstasy whereby it could transcend the 
 records of its own experience, and soar into a 
 region with which the earth had no concern ; the 
 Agnostic holds that the only ecstasy of which the 
 human mind is capable is one that directly arises 
 from contemplating the things of time. The 
 Gnostic affirmed that the clearest light we have 
 comes from our moments of mysticism, when we 
 are lifted above the visible and enabled to com- 
 mune with the eternal and the unseen ; the Ag- 
 nostic declares that these moments of mysticism 
 are themselves but the dimness of the outer senses, 
 the temporary clouds that obscure our perception 
 of the visible and actual world. 
 
 Here is a very striking difference amounting to 
 nothing less than a direct antithesis. And yet we 
 would call attention to the fact that antithetical 
 as these two systems undoubtedly are, there is one 
 essential point on which they are agreed.^ They 
 both take for granted that our sole hope in the 
 
 ^ We have already pointed out this in the anonymous article 
 "Agnosticism" in the 'Scottish Review,' April 1883.
 
 54 Can the Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 possibility of obtaining Divine knowledge rests 
 upon our possession of a faculty which transcends 
 the limits of earthly experience. They both as- 
 sume that if there be no such faculty, there can be 
 no means whatever whereby man can attain to 
 any knowledge of the supernatural. The Gnostic 
 claims to have such a knowledge, because he 
 claims to possess a mysterious inner eye which 
 beholds supersensuous things ; the Agnostic main- 
 tains that he can have no such knowledge, be- 
 cause he feels that he does not possess any 
 power which is capable of transcending the limits 
 of sense or surpassing the boundaries of finite ex- 
 perience. The two are at one on their main posi- 
 tion — that our recognition of a supernatural world 
 depends on our possession of a supersensuous 
 power. 
 
 But now, what if it could be shown that in this 
 position, whose certainty is tacitly assumed, the 
 Gnostic and the Agnostic are alike wrong } What 
 if it could be shown that instead of being recog- 
 nised by a special faculty, our evidence for the 
 supernatural is actually suggested by the very 
 limits of human experience itself.^ Such a dis- 
 covery would not affect the question whether 
 there be or be not a special power which com- 
 munes with the Divine ; it would leave that still 
 an open question, but it would make its solution 
 a matter of much less consequence. It would
 
 Is the Object of Faith Knozvablc ? 55 
 
 prove that in order to establish their respective 
 theories the Gnostic and the Agnostic have alike 
 gone out of their way. It would then be possible 
 to hold that the Gnostic was wrong in his premiss 
 and right in his conclusion — wrong in believing in 
 a supersensuous faculty, yet right in maintaining 
 that he had a knowledge of the supernatural. It 
 would then be possible to hold that the Agnostic 
 was right in his premiss and wrong in his conclu- 
 sion — right in asserting that he had no supersen- 
 suous faculty, but wrong in inferring thence that 
 he could have no knowledge of the supernatural. 
 
 And yet, this is the very conclusion, the inevit- 
 able conclusion, to which we have been led by the 
 investigation of the previous chapter. We there 
 found that our idea of the supernatural was an 
 idea directly suggested, not by any transcendental 
 faculty nor by any supposed communion with 
 transcendental things, but simply and solely by a 
 study of the limits of nature herself. We found 
 that we were necessitated to seek a supersensuous 
 solution of the universe from the simple fact that 
 the natural laws were unable, without violating 
 themselves, to account for their own origin. We 
 saw that to introduce the hypothesis of chance 
 was to formulate the idea of a violation of the law 
 of nature ; that to adopt the conception of an un- 
 beginning world was to deny the existence of any 
 law of nature at all. By the exigency of these
 
 56 Can tJic Old Faith live ivitJi the New ? 
 
 alternatives we were driven to a solution of the 
 universe which seemed at once more easy and 
 more rational- — a solution which did not violate any 
 principle of nature, and which did not contradict 
 any testimony of consciousness ; we inferred that 
 the movements of the universe must themselves 
 be the manifestations of a Power beyond the uni- 
 verse. But what we want now to emphasise is the 
 fact that the process by which we arrived at this 
 conclusion was itself a purely natural process. We 
 did not reach it by any transcendentalism, we did 
 not come to it by any mysticism ; we were driven 
 to it by the barred gate of our own experience. 
 It was the limits of our own senses that compelled 
 us to seek a solution of the universe which invoked 
 the presence of a Power beyond them. Experi- 
 ence, and nothing but experience, was the source 
 of our information that nature was inadequate to 
 account for her own existence. No transcendental 
 logic, no mystical power of abstraction, no special 
 faculty conversant with the things beyond experi- 
 ence, could ever in this matter have possessed one 
 tithe of the authority which was wielded by the 
 testimony of experience itself when it told us that 
 the domain of visible nature was too narrow and 
 limited to account for what we see. 
 
 Here, then, is a point which has been ignored by 
 both the Gnostic and the Agnostic. Our know- 
 ledge that there is a supernatural is not suggested
 
 Is tJie Object of Fait J L Kiwzvablc ? 57 
 
 by the supernatural ; it comes from those very 
 limits of experience which the Gnostic and the 
 Agnostic alike hold to be barriers to our view of 
 God, The stone which each of these builders has 
 rejected is that which has been made the head of 
 the corner. This is not a matter of theory ; it is 
 a matter of Positivism, of fact, of experience. We 
 may, if we will, deny the existence of the super- 
 natural, but we cannot deny that there have been 
 times when we have dreamed of its existence. 
 That dream was at the very least an idea, and the 
 idea is here the thing that needs to be accounted 
 for. However illusory it may have been, however 
 short-lived it may have been, however soon it may 
 have been supplanted by another and a contrary 
 thought, it remains an eternal fact that it once was 
 there. That at any moment of our lives there 
 should have been present in the mind the concep- 
 tion that there is something which transcends the 
 limits of nature, nay, that at any moment there 
 should have entered the mind the idea that nature 
 has a limit at all — this is the real problem that 
 needs to be explained. And what we wish to 
 emphasise is the fact that the explanation has been 
 found, not in the exercise of a transcendental 
 faculty, but in that sober study of the things of 
 experience which the Positivist declares to be the 
 boundary of human knowledge. It is from nature 
 herself that we have learned the limits of nature,
 
 58 Can the Old Faith live zuith the New ? 
 
 and it is in learning the limits of nature that we 
 have caught a glimpse of that region which is 
 illimitable. 
 
 We have now considered the first of the posi- 
 tions by which it has been proposed to deny that 
 the object of faith can be an object of knowledge. 
 We have seen that if there be any barrier to an 
 intellectual communion between the human and 
 the Divine, it does not lie in the nature of the 
 human — so far, at least, as that nature is viewed 
 simply as finite. It is, of course, quite possible to 
 hold that the human nature may have so debased 
 itself by sin as to render it naturally incapable of 
 communing with the Divine, but that is an ethical 
 and not an intellectual barrier. We are here con- 
 sidering simply the position that the fact of man 
 being a finite being debars him from attaining to 
 a knowledge of God — and we have found that 
 position to be untenable. We have seen that the 
 moment a man reaches the idea of his finitude, he 
 has already attained the thought of something 
 beyond it, or, in other words, that the very recog- 
 nition of a barred gate implies the recognition of 
 something on the other side against which it is 
 barred. There is, therefore, nothing in the fact of 
 man being finite which renders it impossible for 
 him to arrive at Divine knowledge ; it is by the 
 knowledge of his finitude that he reaches the idea 
 of a Divine existence. And this brin<js us to the
 
 Is the Object of Faith Knowablc ? 59 
 
 second of those arguments by which it has been 
 attempted to deny the possibility that man should 
 know God. It is said that the nature of infinitude 
 itself precludes such a possibility, that the moment 
 the infinite were known it would from that very 
 fact cease to be infinite. Let us try to explain 
 this position a little more fully. 
 
 And let us begin by adverting again to the 
 contrasted standpoints of Gnosticism and Agnos- 
 ticism. The Gnostic and Agnostic are not only 
 opposed in their views of man's capacity for know- 
 ing ; they are also at variance in their doctrine of 
 the nature of that object which is to be known. 
 They have a totally diff"erent notion of what con- 
 stitutes infinitude. Let us begin with the view of 
 the Gnostic. To him the only infinite thing in 
 this universe was spirit. All matter in his eyes 
 was essentially a limit; infinitely extended matter 
 would have been to him simply an infinitely ex- 
 tended limitation. The soul in this world was 
 limited just because it was embodied ; the Spirit 
 of the universe was unlimited or infinite just be- 
 cause it was not embodied — ^just because it could 
 not be represented by any visible likeness either 
 in heaven, or on earth, or in the waters under the 
 earth. Whenever, therefore, the human soul was 
 able to disembody itself, it was thereby able to 
 comnmne with God. And, according to the Gnos- 
 tic, such disembodiment was quite possible even.
 
 6o Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the Neiv ? 
 
 in the present world. A man did not need to 
 wait for it until he came to die ; he might find it 
 now and here. He had only to retire within him- 
 self, to withdraw himself from the things and de- 
 sires of time, to keep his thoughts fixed upon 
 those abstract and bodiless truths which were in- 
 dependent of the seen and temporal, and he would 
 thereby be elevated into that illimitable region 
 which was the very home of the Infinite ; when 
 he had freed his thoughts from the images of 
 sight, he would reach the knowledge of Him whom 
 eye hath not seen. 
 
 Now it is asserted by the Agnostic, that if there 
 be in the nature of God an infinitude of this de- 
 scription, it is certainly a species of infinitude 
 which could never be an object of knowledge to 
 any human soul. The Agnostic maintains that 
 the very idea of human knowledge implies a ma- 
 terial or bodily limitation. We cannot, he says, 
 think of anything except under the limits of space 
 and time. Even ideas which we call spiritual are 
 never separated from the thought of matter. Our 
 notion of virtue is uniformly associated with one 
 or more virtuous acts. Our conception of beauty 
 is inseparable from the concrete image of some 
 beautiful form. Even our idea of holiness is inti- 
 mately connected with our remembrance of certain 
 bodily temptations which, through the power of a 
 higher spirit, we were enabled to resist. God Him-
 
 Is the Object of Faith Knoivable ? 6i 
 
 self, if known to us at all, could only be made 
 known to us through some portion of our indi- 
 vidual nature ; and that which speaks to any part 
 of our individual nature must of necessity be itself 
 embodied. To recognise God as God, would itself 
 be to separate God from other beings ; and to 
 separate God from other beings is to embody Him 
 in a distinct form. The very recognition, there- 
 fore, of a presence which we distinguish as divine, 
 implies that we are not in a region of infinitude 
 where there is no distinction between one thing 
 and another, but that we are in a world where 
 God Himself is so distinct from other things that 
 He is able at once to be distinguished from them. 
 
 We pass now to the second conception of the 
 nature of infinitude — that entertained by the Ag- 
 nostic. In his view, that which conveys the 
 nearest symbol of infinitude is matter. The 
 Gnostic reached his conception of the infinite by 
 a process of subtraction — by lopping oft' one by 
 one all the material elements from tlie tree of life. 
 The Agnostic, on the other hand, believes that the 
 effort to realise the infinite can only be made by 
 a process of addition — by adding material field to 
 field until we have arrived at the conception of a 
 space without limit and a universe without bounds. 
 
 Here, however, the Agnostic himself pauses and 
 draws back. Holding, as he does, that the effort 
 to realise the infinite can only be made by the
 
 62 Can the Old Faith live zvith the New ? 
 
 extension of matter, he holds not less strongly and 
 distinctly that every such effort must prove a com- 
 plete failure.^ He denies that, in point of fact, 
 any attempt to reach the conception of an infin- 
 itely large material universe has ever been fol- 
 lowed, or can ever be followed, by success. He 
 asks us to figure in our imagination, if we can, 
 the image of such an infinite universe. The mo- 
 ment we have figured any universe at all, we have 
 ipso facto denied its infinitude. What is the rea- 
 son that we are able to figure any object.^ It is 
 simply because every object in the world is finite 
 or limited — is bounded or marked off from other 
 things by a certain definite form. If I am able 
 to conceive the form of a house, it is just because 
 the form of a house is separated from the forms 
 of other things. If the house were identical with 
 the ground on which it stands, I could not pos- 
 sibly conceive it ; it is because it is an object dis- 
 tinct from other objects that I have any perception 
 of it at all. And this distinction, let us remember, 
 is a limit. It is the distinction of one thing from 
 another which prevents that thing from being in- 
 finite ; if it were infinite it would be incapable of 
 being distinguished, which is only, in other words, 
 to say that it would be incapable of being known. 
 On this ground the Agnostic rejects the material, 
 
 ^ Agnosticism here includes more than the mere empiricist'; it 
 comprehends the school of Mansel and Hamilton.
 
 Is the Object of Fait Ji Knozvable ? 6"^ 
 
 as he had rejected the spiritual Infinite viewed as 
 an object of possible knowledge. Both are to him 
 alike unknowable ; the recognition of either would 
 to him involve a contradiction in terms. Con- 
 structed as they are by two opposite methods 
 — the one by the diminution, the other by the 
 enlargement, of the world of sense — they are both 
 alike to him incapable of presentation to the 
 human consciousness, and unable to be expressed 
 in terms of human knowledge. The Agnostic 
 therefore asks, not without a show of plausibility, 
 what we expect to gain by our search for the 
 supernatural. He points us to the fact that, sooner 
 or later, we must be brought in our investigation 
 to that adamantine wall against which the intellect 
 of man has dashed itself in vain — the idea of in- 
 finitude. He reminds us that, to represent that 
 idea would be to destroy the very thing which it 
 represents ; and he warns us to abandon before- 
 hand an effort which, however protracted, can only 
 end in ignominious failure, and only produce an 
 exhaustion of those intellectual powers which 
 might be more fitly expended on themes of 
 practical usefulness. 
 
 Can this adamantine wall be broken down t That 
 is the question which, according to the popular 
 notion, should now lie before the theologian. A 
 rampart has been constructed by the Agnostic 
 against the possibility of Divine knowledge, and
 
 64 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the Nezv ? 
 
 it is naturally held that the first duty of the 
 Christian apologist is, to bend his efforts towards 
 its destruction. Has it ever occurred to us that 
 there is a preliminary question, and a question 
 which, if answered satisfactorily, would render the 
 putting of the other superfluous ? Before asking 
 whether the wall can be broken down, would it 
 not be well to ask whether the wall is really the 
 barrier it professes to be? Before inquiring if 
 there is any means by which we can gain a con- 
 ception of infinitude, would it not be well to 
 inquire whether we need to gain such a concep- 
 tion in order to acquire a knowledge of God ? 
 For our part, we are convinced that we do not. 
 We feel sure that the barrier raised by Agnosticism 
 against the possibility of Divine knowledge has 
 been erected in the wrong place, and is therefore 
 no barrier at all. We are persuaded that the 
 solution of the question whether man has or has 
 not a power to know the infinite, so far from being 
 a problem which awaits him on the threshold of 
 religious speculation, is a problem which can only 
 begin when he has already reached a knowledge 
 of God ; and we shall endeavour, as briefly as we 
 can, to set forth and explain the grounds on which 
 we have arrived at this conclusion. 
 
 We have seen that there is an opposition be- 
 tween the Gnostic and the Agnostic as to the 
 possibilities of human nature. The former holds
 
 Is the Object of Faith Knoivable ? 65 
 
 that human nature is potentially unlimited, and 
 that man is able to comprehend the infinite ; the 
 latter holds that human nature is confined within 
 the boundaries of time and sense, and that there- 
 fore the infinite can never be an object of man's 
 knowledge. From these opposite standpoints, the 
 Gnostic and the Agnostic have assumed different 
 attitudes towards religion : the former, from his 
 belief in man's power to know the infinite, con- 
 cludes, as a matter of course, that he has power 
 to know God ; the latter, from his conviction that 
 man can never know the infinite, proceeds, by one 
 bound, to the conclusion that he can never know 
 God. Now, diverse as these systems are, there 
 is, strange to say, one point in which they are 
 agreed ; they both assume that the knowledge of 
 God is identical with the knowledge of the infinite. 
 They both take for granted that the essence of 
 God is His infinitude, and from that premiss they 
 quite logically conclude that, if infinitude cannot 
 be known, God is therefore unknowable. But we 
 deny that the premiss, on which the conclusion 
 rests, is itself sound ; v/e deny that the essence of 
 God is infinitude. And our reason for the denial 
 is this : infinitude cannot be the essence of any- 
 thing either divine, human, or material. Infini- 
 tude is not an essence : it is a quality or attribute ; 
 it is a certain degree of intensity possessed by an 
 object already existing. The object must be al- 
 
 £
 
 66 Can the Old Faith live zvitli the Neiv ? 
 
 ready existing before it can be said to be either 
 finite or infinite. Finite and infinite are both 
 quah'ties which we attribute to the nature of 
 certain beings or things. 
 
 Before we can say that a thing is either finite 
 or infinite, we must know what the thing itself is. 
 Finiteness and infiniteness do not refer to the 
 nature of an object, but to the intensity with 
 which that nature is possessed. When I say that 
 a house is finite, I do not mean that finitude is 
 that which constitutes the house ; that which con- 
 stitutes the house is clearly its form. What I 
 mean is, that the image of the house, which I have 
 already in my mind, does not give me the impres- 
 sion of an object infinitely large, but of a figure 
 which on every side is bounded and limited by 
 other objects ; therefore it is that I call it finite. 
 The finitude, however, is not the first, but the 
 latest, fact of knowledge I acquire ; it is a quality 
 which I only perceive when I have already learned 
 the nature of the object. When I say again that 
 space is too infinite to be fully comprehended by 
 the mind of man, I have seemingly asserted a 
 fact in favour of Agnosticism ; I have declared that 
 space is infinite, and that I cannot know it in its 
 infinitude. Yet what has brought me to this con- 
 clusion ? Not my ignorance of space, but just my 
 knowledge of space. It is only because I have 
 learned what it is, that I have learned my inability
 
 Is the Object of Faith Kitoivablc ? 6/ 
 
 to know it fully ; my Agnosticism has grown out 
 of my knowledge. I have come to the conclusion 
 that space must possess a quality of infinitude, 
 which to my finite mind is incomprehensible ; but 
 I have come to that conclusion because, through 
 the powers of my finite mind, I have learned that 
 the idea of space is a necessary idea, an idea 
 without which no object in heaven, or earth, or 
 sea can have any existence to my consciousness. 
 
 Let us now proceed to apply this to the idea 
 of God. When I say that God is infinite, what 
 do I mean ? Clearly this : that He is a Being 
 possessed of attributes which in their intensity 
 are boundless. If I wish to know the nature of 
 this God, am I to begin with the boundlessness or 
 with the attributes .-* The latter is clearly the only 
 possible method. When I say that God is infinite, 
 I mean that a certain kind of existence is infinite, 
 — a certain life, a certain character, a certain phase 
 of spirituality. The first thing I have to learn 
 is the nature of that existence, that life, that char- 
 acter, that phase of spirit ; when I have arrived 
 at this conception, it will then be time for me to 
 consider whether I have the power to realise it to 
 its full extent — in other words, in the boundless- 
 ness or infiniteness of its intensity. To begin with 
 that boundlessness would be to rear a super- 
 structure without a foundation. Were we to ask 
 a seeker after God what he is seeking, and were
 
 68 Can the Old Faith live ivith the Nezv ? 
 
 he to answer that he was in search of the infinite, 
 we should ask again, the infinite what ? Is it 
 the infinite universe, or the infinite void, or the 
 infinite mind ? A man may seek the infinite 
 without seeking God ; infinitude is a quality that 
 belongs to time and space, and perhaps to matter 
 itself. That which makes God different from time 
 and space and matter is not His infinitude but His 
 nature, and therefore to know God is not to know 
 His infinitude but to know His nature. Paradox- 
 ical as it may sound, it is as a finite and not as 
 an infinite being that God must be known. We 
 must form a definite conception of what He is, 
 and then we shall be at liberty to extend that 
 conception indefinitely. If the result of our efforts 
 to extend it should only be to teach us the impos- 
 sibility of exhausting its contents, we shall at least 
 have the satisfaction of knowing that our inability 
 to comprehend God's infinitude has been taught us 
 by our knowledge of the nature of God Himself. 
 
 We demur, then, to the statement that God is 
 the infinite. A man may say that God is infinite, 
 or that God has infinitude ; but to say that God 
 is the infinite, is equivalent to saying that the name 
 God may be applied to any object which suggests 
 the idea of boundlessness. To affirm that God is 
 the infinite seems to us just as absurd as to say 
 that the rose is the red. The rose is not the red, 
 because redness is a quality which may belong to
 
 Is the Object of Faith Knowable ? 6g 
 
 many objects besides roses, and which is therefore 
 not that distinctive feature which marks ofif the 
 rose from any other thing. God, in hke manner, 
 is not the infinite or boundless, because God is 
 not the only existence which presents to the mind 
 the notion of boundlessness. Boundlessness may 
 be predicated of any quality, whether virtuous or 
 vicious. The belief in infinite power does not of 
 necessity involve the belief in a Divine being at 
 all ; the divinity depends on the nature of that 
 being who lies behind the infinitude and who 
 wields the power. The first thing which every 
 man must know is the character of that object 
 whom he professes to worship. Before all things 
 he must in his own mind assign to him certain 
 spiritual attributes, and he will not reach these 
 attributes by starting with the notion of infinitude. 
 Let him forget, in the meantime, all thought of 
 infinitude ; let him banish alike the word and the 
 idea until he has found an object to whom he can 
 attribute the idea and apply the word. When he 
 has found that object, when he has fixed in his 
 mind what those attributes are to which he shall 
 be willing to give the name of God, he will then 
 be entitled to consider how far he is able to con- 
 ceive these attributes in an intensified degree ; he 
 may begin to study God's perfection when he 
 has arrived at the knowledge of that which in God 
 is perfected.
 
 70 Can tJic Old Faith live with the N'etu ? 
 
 We have been led, then, to tin's conclusion : If 
 there be any barrier to man's acquisition of Divine 
 knowledge, it does not lie either in man's finitude 
 or in God's infinitude. There is nothing in the 
 nature of our faculties nor in the limits of our 
 human experience which makes it impossible for 
 us to reach a knowledge of the supernatural, for, in 
 point of fact, it is from these very limits of our 
 experience that our idea of the supernatural has 
 come. There is nothing in the fact of God's in- 
 finite nature which makes it impossible for us to 
 find in Him an object of knowledge, for the infini- 
 tude of His nature is but the degree of its intensity, 
 and we may know the nature without measuring 
 its degree. Since, then, there is no barrier to our 
 Divine knowledge, either in the limits of our own 
 mind or in the absence of limit in the Divine mind, 
 it remains to ask whether there is any barrier in 
 the actual facts of human knowledge. It remains 
 to ask whether the progress of modern investiga- 
 tion has presented the constitution of nature in a 
 light so new as to render the old belief in the 
 possibility of Divine communion a superannuated 
 and faded dream. Metaphysics and theology have 
 still left unbarred the gates of possibility ; has the 
 development of modern science compelled us to 
 close these gates .'' Has the increasing knowledge 
 of nature, which our nineteenth century has con- 
 fessedly revealed, contributed in any degree to
 
 Is the Object of Faith Knoivable ? yi 
 
 shut those avenues of communion through which 
 man in all ages has sought an approach to God ? 
 Are we, in short, now that the light of science has 
 made us humble, any longer entitled to assume 
 that we are worthy to hold that place in the uni- 
 verse of being which our fathers claimed to occupy, 
 and in virtue of which occupation they aspired to 
 communion with the Divine ? A consideration of 
 this question must be deferred till the next chapter.
 
 J 2 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 THE CONDITIONS REQUISITE TO DIVINE 
 KNOWLEDGE. 
 
 " And God said, Let us make man in our own 
 image," are the striking words in which the 
 Scriptures of the Old Testament introduce their 
 revelation. It is not sufficiently often borne in 
 mind that these are the words which constitute the 
 possibility of that revelation — nay, that words 
 such as these are required to constitute the pos- 
 sibility of any revelation whatever. To see this, 
 we have only to put to ourselves the question, 
 What is implied in the assertion that man can 
 know God ? We shall be driven instantaneously 
 to the conclusion that man can know God only by 
 having a kindred nature to God. This is not a 
 mere principle of theology, nor a doctrine which 
 has found place simply in the minds of those who 
 believe in spiritual regeneration ; it is one of the 
 oldest, one of the most widely spread, and one of 
 the least controverted maxims of philosophy. It
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knozvledge. yi 
 
 is as old as Empedocles ; it is the doctrine alike of 
 the Atomist and of the Sophist ; it is at the root 
 of all modern metaphysics, and at the base of all 
 nineteenth-century science. A principle so early 
 enunciated and so recently affirmed, so widely 
 accepted by the past and so generally influential 
 in our own day, deserves at the outset to receive a 
 little consideration. 
 
 The principle of which we speak is that thought 
 which was first embodied in the philosophic maxim 
 of Empedocles — " Like can only be known by like." 
 The idea here conveyed is, that in order to know 
 anything, the man who knows must have some- 
 thing in common with the object which is known. 
 What the writer of the Book of Genesis applied to 
 the knowledge of God in particular, the philoso- 
 phers of Greece applied to all knowledge whatso- 
 ever. They affirmed that in the nature of things 
 it was essential to every act of human knowledge, 
 either that the man should be made in the image 
 of the thing which he perceived, or that the thing 
 which he perceived should have been made in his 
 image : without such a community of nature there 
 was of necessity a great gulf fixed between the eye 
 of the beholder and the object which it beheld. 
 
 And, indeed, a moment's reflection will convince 
 us that, as a matter of actual experience, this is 
 the only condition of any knowledge. When we 
 read a book, we seem to be put in possession of
 
 74 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 something which is foreign to our original nature ; 
 in reality, however, it is not so. In point of fact, 
 we are able to understand the book just in propor- 
 tion as the book is already in our own image. It 
 may communicate to us outward events of which 
 we were previously unaware, but it cannot commu- 
 nicate to us a single thought whose germ is not 
 already in our own mind. In all departments of 
 study we must, previous to our entrance on the study, 
 be spiritually in unison with that which we are about 
 to contemplate; and as a condition to receiving 
 any information, there m.ust already be established 
 between us and our object a certain communicating 
 bridge on which we and it may meet face to face. 
 
 The question then between Gnosticism and Ag- 
 nosticism narrows itself to this : whether there is 
 or is not the possibility of any species of Incarna- 
 tion. The statement may seem a startling one, 
 but it is strictly and philosophically true. The 
 necessary postulate to any knowledge of God what- 
 ever, is the belief that some mode of the Divine 
 nature is in union with some phase of the human 
 nature ; if the possibility of such knowledge be 
 conceded at all, other foundation for it can no man 
 lay. Tlicre is not a religion in the world which 
 does not in some form or other presuppose or 
 teach the doctrine of an Incarnation. That doc- 
 trine openly or implicitly pervades the whole circle 
 of sacred thought. It animates the worship of the
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knou'ledge. 75 
 
 Brahman, it underlies the creed of the Polytheist, 
 it is bound up in the philosophy of the Platonist, 
 it is necessary to the belief of the Theist, it is the 
 life and soul of the faith of the Christian. If there 
 ever was a religion which might seem at first sight 
 to be alien to the spirit of Incarnation, that re- 
 ligion was Judaism. There, God was a being of 
 solitary majesty, dwelling at an immeasurable dis- 
 tance from His creatures, and transmitting His 
 messages to the sons of men only through inter- 
 mediate intelligences. Yet even this religion, with 
 so exaggerated a view of the Divine transcendence, 
 was compelled in the interest of philosophy — nay, 
 in the interest of that very faith which she pro- 
 fessed — to accept an intellectual bridge between 
 the human and the Divine. She was compelled to 
 account for the fact that the messages transmitted 
 by God, through however many intermediaries they 
 passed, were ultimately received and understood by 
 a creature so distant as man ; and she accounted 
 for that fact by affirming in unusually strong lan- 
 guage the principle that like is known by like, — 
 God said, " Let us make man in our own image." 
 
 If, then. Agnosticism is to be met at all, it must 
 be met on this fundamental question — the possi- 
 bility of Incarnation. We use the term in its 
 widest sense to denote the possibility of any con- 
 tact between the nature of the human and the 
 nature of the Divine. It matters not for our
 
 ^6 Can the Old Faith live luith the Nezv ? 
 
 present purpose how that contact is supposed to 
 have come ; whether from the stooping of God 
 down to man, or from the hfting of man up to 
 God. All that we are here concerned with is, the 
 existence of the contact itself; and we maintain 
 that, if God is to be an object of knowledge, the 
 existence of such a contact is a first necessity. 
 Now the question which we have here to consider 
 is, whether the modern doctrine of evolution has 
 rendered more doubtful the possibility of this con- 
 tact. We are not writing a work on apologetics. 
 We are not seeking to defend the doctrines of the 
 old faith on their own ground. What we desire to 
 do is, to see whether and to what extent the old 
 ground has been attacked, and to register the re- 
 suit of our observation. Naturally, therefore, we 
 begin with that doctrine which lies at the basis of 
 all religion — the possibility of a contact between 
 God and the human soul. We begin with inquir- 
 ing whether the modern doctrine of evolution has 
 to any extent interfered with our faith in the 
 existence of a certain meeting-place between the 
 Divine and the human. We want to know whether 
 that ladder, on which communications were once 
 supposed to ascend and descend, never existed 
 anywhere else than in the dreams of Jacob and 
 such as he ; whether it has ceased to have a place 
 within the possibilities of science, and must hence- 
 forth be relegated to the sphere of poetic fancy.
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knowledge. 77 
 
 Now it is only fair to observe that, in the view 
 of many eminent modern thinkers, the idea of a 
 Hkeness between God and man had its root in an 
 infantine stage of human development. Mr Her- 
 bert Spencer, for example, has not scrupled to con- 
 tend that the first conception of God in the image 
 of man owed its birth to individual fear. When 
 a great chief passed away, he left behind him in 
 the minds of his primitive subjects so great an 
 impression of his power that they conceived his 
 influence to be still invisibly abiding. While yet 
 alive, he had ruled them with a rod of iron ; and 
 now that he was dead, they were unable to realise 
 that the rod had been removed. Accordingly, 
 they transformed their memory of the past into a 
 present reality, and persuaded themselves that the 
 power which their chief had so long exercised on 
 earth was still exercised by him in heaven. They 
 conjured up the notion that he had a ghost or 
 invisible presence, which, although emancipated 
 from its material environment, was still potent in 
 the exercise of the old authority, and still sedulous 
 in the execution of the old laws.^ 
 
 Now the theologian is not concerned to deny 
 that the first conception of a conformity of image 
 between God and man may have had its birth in 
 an infantine stage of humanity ; he is only con- 
 cerned to deny that it owed its birth to such a 
 
 ^ Data of Ethics, p. 115 seq.
 
 78 Can the Old FaitJi live with the A''eiv ? 
 
 stage. That very innocence, which the theologian 
 has been taught to attribute to the primitive man, 
 is itself a stage of intellectual infancy. But what 
 the theologian wants to know is, whether an im- 
 pression, received at the dawn of human conscious- 
 ness, is on that account necessarily a false impres- 
 sion. He wants to know whether the opening 
 mind cannot form certain ideas of things which 
 shall be endorsed by the experience and by the 
 reflection of maturer years, — whether there may 
 not be present at the dawn the same elements of 
 light which shall be discernible in the setting sun. 
 It is no condemnation of a theory merely to prove 
 that it had its birth in an early stage of society. 
 Even the earliest stage of society embodies within 
 it some elements which survive its disappearance 
 and live on to the latest times ; and who is to tell 
 that the particular theory in question may not 
 itself be one of these .'* The simple question is, 
 Has it, or has it not, been able to survive .'' Con- 
 ceding that man in his infancy declared himself to 
 be in the image of God, we must then go on to ask 
 what man says in his manhood. We must ask 
 whether his latest utterance confirms or denies his 
 earliest averment, — whether his ripest experience 
 endorses or rejects the presentiment of his opening 
 years. If we shall find that the doctrine of modern 
 science, be it false or true, is at variance with the 
 sentiment which prompted the original conclusion,
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knozvledge. 79 
 
 we shall then be compelled to admit that, whether 
 rightly or wrongly, humanity has outgrown its 
 creed. But if, on the other hand, we shall find 
 that the latest speculations of modern science lend 
 themselves naturally and easily to the doctrine of 
 an analogy between the human and the Divine — 
 nay, that the speculations of Mr Spencer himself 
 lead directly to the maintenance of such an analogy 
 — we shall not consider it any barrier to this con- 
 clusion to know that the same fact was affirmed 
 in the days when, intellectually, man was only a 
 child. 
 
 Now we have no hesitation in saying that the 
 modern doctrine of evolution, and especially the 
 modern doctrine as expanded by Mr Spencer, is 
 more favourable to the existence of an analogy 
 between the human and the Divine than any pre- 
 vious system of nature with which we are ac- 
 quainted. We are not here inquiring whether the 
 doctrine of evolution be false or true ; we are 
 assuming, for the sake of argument, that it is true, 
 and considering what relation its truth would have 
 to those religious doctrines which are most surely 
 believed among us. Assuming, provisionally, the 
 truth of evolution, we naturally ask, first, what 
 effect its acceptance would have on the most 
 fundamental of all religious doctrines, and the 
 doctrine without which no religion would be pos- 
 sible — the belief that the nature of God is some-
 
 So Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the New ? 
 
 where in contact with the nature of man ? And 
 starting from this basis, we say that the modern 
 theory of evolution, whether false or true, is rather 
 favourable than adverse to such a belief, — that, so 
 far from throwing a barrier in its way, its accept- 
 ance would rather tend to demolish barriers which 
 have been constructed by other and earlier systems 
 of philosophy. We shall briefly state the grounds 
 on which we have come to this conclusion. 
 
 The leading aim of the modern doctrine of 
 evolution is, to establish the unit}^ of species. It 
 seeks, if possible, to abolish ultimately all plurality 
 of existence, to reduce the many to the one. It is 
 not only in the sphere of animal and vegetable life 
 that the doctrine of evolution aims to find a single 
 species out of which all other species have come ; 
 its design reaches much further than that. Evolu- 
 tion seeks to start from the highest known form of 
 creation, and thence to go back to the lowest, — 
 to begin at the top of the ladder and descend, step 
 by step, until it reaches the ground on which the 
 ladder rests. The question is, What is that ground, 
 — what is the basis on which the summit of the 
 ladder must ultimately repose.-* The summit of 
 the ladder, so far as it has yet been climbed, is 
 man. Wliat, then, according to evolution, is the 
 basis of man, the species from which he was origin- 
 ally evolved } It is not difficult to see that he has 
 something in common with the animal, both as
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knowledge. 8 1 
 
 regards his structure and as regards his life ; and 
 evolution has sought to show that the amount of 
 similarity is adequate to prove that the human 
 has, structurally at least, been evolved from the 
 animal. But evolution cannot stop here. The 
 man and the animal alike have something in com- 
 mon with an order of creation which is inferior to 
 both — the kingdom of plant-life. The evolution 
 theory, therefore, descends a step further still, and 
 seeks to prove that plant-life was the germ from 
 which the two higher orders were structurally de- 
 veloped. But it cannot stop even here. The man, 
 the animal, and the plant have in their turn some- 
 thing in common with a lower order of creation 
 still ; they have elements in their structure which 
 they have derived from the matter of the earth. 
 Evolution, accordingly, seeks to find facts to show 
 that the elements of non-living matter have had 
 something to do with the production of those forms 
 of plant-life which have developed into forms of 
 animal organisation, and which have ultimately 
 flowered into the bodily organisation of man. 
 
 Can evolution stop here ? that is still impossible. 
 The man, the animal, the vegetable, and the matter 
 of the earth from which they draw their susten- 
 ance, have all something in common with an order 
 of existence behind them. That order of existence 
 is force. All forms of earthly matter are subject 
 to one great force — the principle of gravity. The 
 
 F
 
 82 Can the Old Faith live with the A^ezv ? 
 
 human frame, the body of the animal, and the 
 forms of vegetable life, are all attracted towards 
 the earth as their centre. But this attractive 
 power which seems to reside in the matter of the 
 earth does not really reside there. The briefest 
 observation convinces us that, so far from being 
 an active source of gravity, the earth is itself a 
 passive recipient of that force. The matter of the 
 earth is found to be so united to the matter of 
 other worlds as to be incapable of existing if these 
 other worlds were withdrawn. The evolutionist is 
 thus lifted a step further back in his efforts to find 
 the origin of species. One would have thought a 
 priori that the earth would have proved his ter- 
 minus ; it has proved, in truth, only his beginning. 
 It reveals itself as but the fragment of a vast 
 system — a system to whose existence it owes its 
 being, and by whose force its own forces are con- 
 stituted. Here, then, is a common ground exist- 
 ing between the earth and the whole solar universe 
 — a ground of mutual dependence. The matter of 
 the earth cannot exist in its present form without 
 the matter of the solar heavens ; the matter of the 
 solar heavens cannot exist in its present form 
 without the matter of the earth. This mutual 
 dependence of forces indicates that in neither of 
 them does the force find its original scat, and the 
 evolutionist is therefore driven back further still in 
 liis search for a first principle. Looking abroad
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knozvledge. 83 
 
 over the solar universe, lie perceives that the mutu- 
 ally dependent forces of the earth and the other 
 planets are themselves dependent on the force 
 of a great central luminary — the sun. To the sun, 
 accordingly, the evolutionist turns his eyes, in the 
 hope of discovering there the original seat of at 
 least that particular system which bears its name. 
 Nor does he fail to find evidence that this central 
 luminary once united within itself all those plan- 
 etary forms which now circle round it. He sees 
 that the further back he goes in time the sun is 
 of necessity increasing its diameter. A year ago 
 its diameter was 220 feet greater than it is now ; 
 a hundred years ago it was four miles greater ; a 
 thousand years ago it was forty miles greater ; ten 
 thousand years ago it was four hundred miles 
 greater. The evolutionist asks us to conceive what 
 its diameter must have been in periods of indef- 
 initely distant ages. It is not difficult to see that 
 the sun must at that time have been the all of the 
 solar universe, that it must have engulfed within 
 itself all those forms and forces which have now a 
 partially independent being, and that it must have 
 combined in a life of comparative unity the ele- 
 ments of those structures which have since emerged 
 into such striking variety. 
 
 Yet there is no reason to believe that the 
 evolutionist has even here reached his terminus. 
 There is no reason to think that the sun, however
 
 84 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 much it may be the source of the solar system, is 
 itself anything more than the fragment of a larger 
 and wider system. There is no reason to doubt 
 that the mutual dependence which prevails among 
 planets, prevails likewise among suns, and that our 
 luminary is indebted for its being to the being of 
 a universe beyond it. Once more, therefore, the 
 evolutionist turns his eye backward in search of a 
 principle of unity more distinct and more indis- 
 putable than he has hitherto found. He is no 
 longer able to follow the stream of actual facts, for, 
 when he has reached the centre of the solar system, 
 he has almost reached the boundary of direct 
 observation. But where observation fails, imagina- 
 tion begins. The man of science, where the criti- 
 cal faculty becomes unavailable, appropriates for a 
 time the faculty of the poet, and seeks by a flash 
 of intuition to realise that unity of nature which 
 the limitations of physical sense forbid him to 
 trace or verify. 
 
 It is to this leap of the scientific imagination 
 that wc are indebted for the theory known as the 
 nebular hypothesis. With the explanation or 
 defence of that hypothesis we have here nothing 
 to do ; we are only concerned with it in so far as 
 it is an attempt to reduce the many forms of 
 nature to the one. Viewed in this light, its scope 
 may be thus indicated. The evolutionist conceives 
 that, just as all the planets of the solar system
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knoivlcdge. 85 
 
 once formed a part of its central luminary or sun, 
 so all the planets of every other system once 
 formed a part of their central luminary or sun. 
 When the plurality of revolving worlds in the uni- 
 verse has thus been reduced to the plurality of the 
 suns round which they move, the evolutionist goes 
 on to reduce still further this multiplicity of objects. 
 He goes on to conceive a time when the suns 
 them.selves were engulfed in a fire more central 
 still. He imagines that at one period the central 
 luminaries of the various planetary systems were 
 all united in the mist of a fire-cloud. He starts 
 from the conception of a vast nebulous mass of 
 heated matter, slowly revolving round its own axis, 
 and gradually cooling down. Within this heated 
 nebulous mass he conceives to have been origin- 
 ally embraced all the forces of the physical uni- 
 verse. He conceives that here were mixed up in an 
 indistinguishable unity the lights of various stars 
 and the stars of various systems — that the planets 
 were merged in their suns, and their suns were 
 merged in the fire that gave them birth — until all 
 plurality was lost in the indiscriminate commingling 
 of those forces and powers of nature which now 
 exist as seemingly independent elements. 
 
 One would think that evolution must here at 
 last have exhausted her possibilities of simplifica- 
 tion, must here have finally attained her nearest 
 approach to the discovery of a unif}'ing principle.
 
 86 Can t/ic Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 In truth, hovvev^er, it is not so. Science sees clearly 
 that Vv'hat she has really attained by this nebular 
 hypothesis is no unit\^ at all, but only the tempo- 
 rary concealment of a difference. She sees clearly 
 that, conceding the truth of this general engulfment 
 in a fire-cloud, it does not amount to anything 
 more tJian an engulfment ; it no more destroys the 
 separate potencies of things than a flood which 
 submerged the world would thereby destroy that 
 distinction of elements which existed before sub- 
 mergence. The very fact that the forces latent in 
 this fire-cloud are able ultimately to separate them- 
 selves into distinct and relatively independent forces, 
 is a proof that while /;/ the fire-cloud the forces 
 ^uere only latent and not non-existent. If their 
 difference had been non-existent at the beginning, 
 it would have remained so for ever. 
 
 And here it is that the theory of evolution, in the 
 person of its representative, Mr Herbert Spencer, 
 feels itself constrained in its search for unity to 
 overleap the boundaries of materialism. Starting 
 as it does with the structures and the forms of 
 things, and tracing back, step by step, the process 
 by which these forms and structures emerged from 
 a common unity, it ends by making the discovery 
 that no structural or pln-sical basis can ever ulti- 
 mately constitute that unity. Evolution, therefore, 
 is drix'cn by her own scientific researches to suppose 
 the existence of a world which is not physical and
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knozvledgc. "^"j 
 
 not conditioned by finite things. After exhibiting 
 in minute detail the operations and tlie transmu- 
 tations of the forces men call physical — after trac- 
 ing with untiring care the links of that chain by 
 which these forces penetrate the universe, — Mr 
 Spencer has at last^ been compelled to admit that 
 they are each and all inadequate to account for a 
 single process of that universe. He has been com- 
 pelled to recognise the fact that, potent as they 
 seem to be, they are, after all, but the symbols and 
 the emblems of another and a mightier Power, 
 which exists transcendently behind them, and of 
 whose existence they are only the manifestations. 
 What that Power is Mr Spencer does not say ; he 
 maintains that it is impossible to say ; he contends 
 that its nature is inscrutable. But there is one 
 fact about it which Mr Spencer does grant — a fact 
 which, however negative in itself, has very positive 
 bearings ; he admits that this inscrutable Force or 
 Power, which is the ultimate uniting principle of 
 all other forces and powers, is a principle which 
 itself transcends every material process of nature. 
 It is not a residt of physical forces, but a cause of 
 physical forces ; it unites them not simply by com- 
 bining, but mainly by underlying them. Without 
 this transcendental Force the forces of nature could 
 no more be, than the shadow could be without the 
 
 1 He contemplates this result, indeed, from the beginning ; see 
 his chapters on the Unknowable in earlier part of First Principles.
 
 88 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 substance. In truth, in Mr Spencer's view, these 
 are the shadows and this is the substance. The 
 things which we see, hear, taste, and handle, come 
 to us from a region of mystery — nay, are now 
 in a region of mystery. What they are in them- 
 selves we know not ; we only know what they seem 
 to be, and that their seeming must be very different 
 from their reality. Their reality lies in that Exist- 
 ence which they manifest — an Existence which tran- 
 scends them even while it supports and manifests 
 them — a Power whose being is to them inscrutable 
 even while in it they live and have tJieir' being. 
 
 To this goal, therefore, have we come, led by the 
 hand of the evolution theory itself. We have been 
 obliged in our search for unity to fall back upon 
 the belief in the existence of a Power which tran- 
 scends the world of matter as we know it — to postu- 
 late the life of a Presence which, although every- 
 where persistent, is yet everywhere inscrutable. 
 Let it be remembered that, according to Mr Spen- 
 cer, the belief in such a Presence is equally neces- 
 sary at all times. It is not something which is 
 required to account for certain processes of nature ; 
 it is required to account for every minutest step 
 of every natural process whatever. Mr Spencer 
 does not profess to be a thcist, and he would 
 certainly repudiate the imputation of believing in 
 a special Providence ; yet no theist, no believer in 
 a special Providence, ever asked more from his
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knoivledge. 89 
 
 God than Mr Spencer asks from his inscrutable 
 Power. What he demands from that Power is 
 nothing less than an absolute omnipresence, pervad- 
 ing all the movements and persisting through all 
 the changes of nature. The Force which Jie requires 
 to account for the universe is a Force which is 
 not required in one place more than another, or at 
 one time more than another. In the view of Mr 
 Spencer, the physical manifestations of nature are 
 all in an equal degree impotent to produce them- 
 selves, and all in an equal degree demand the ex- 
 istence of a Power behind them. To him there is 
 no distinction in nature between great and small ; 
 nature is a united organism, a connected whole, to 
 which every part contributes, and in which every 
 part is equally essential. No single part of the 
 visible framework is either self-originating or self- 
 supporting, nor does the visible framework subsist 
 simply by the union of all. F'or every moment of 
 its being, for every breath of its life, for every 
 manifestation of its movement, there is needed the 
 presence and the action of a Force which is itself 
 perfectly inscrutable and perfectly transcendent — 
 a Force, of which the changes in the physical uni- 
 verse are the phases and the embodiments, but 
 which yet itself in its deepest essence is incapable 
 of change. It subsists everywhere and always ; the 
 lowliest and the loftiest processes of nature equally 
 manifest its power. It is not simply primal but
 
 go Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezu ? 
 
 basal. To seek it we do not need to go back in 
 search of an absolute beginning; every movement 
 of the existing universe is as much an expression 
 of it as if for the first time it were forming that 
 universe. In each tremor of a nerve, in each 
 weaving of a tissue, in each motion of a limb, in 
 each perception of an organ, we find ourselves per- 
 petually in the presence of a Power which we do 
 not comprehend, but which }-et comprehends us 
 and encloses our entire being. 
 
 The question now is. What bearing has all this 
 upon the possibility of man's contact with the 
 object of his worship. It has this important bear- 
 ing, that it shows the theory of evolution to be 
 corroborative of such a possibility. The Force 
 which Mr Herbert Spencer places at the summit 
 and base of things is not indeed an object of 
 theistic worship, but it has this much in common 
 with the God of theism, that it is a Power which 
 transcends nature. Here then is the remarkable 
 concession of a point, and that the fundamental 
 ])oint, on which the new faith can live with the old. 
 The Book of Genesis says that through the pos- 
 session of a common image there is a possibility 
 of contact between the human and the Divine. 
 Has modern science negatived that assertion ? 
 Has the increasing breadth of our knowledge of 
 nature contributed so to dwarf our human con- 
 sciousness as to make the possibility of Divine con-
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knozuledge. 91 
 
 tact a dream ? On the contrary, the distinctive 
 doctrine of evolution is the unity of species, or to 
 speak more accurately, the unity of nature. The 
 distinctive doctrine of evolution is the belief that 
 at the root of all things there dwells a common 
 principle, and that the many are ultimately reduc- 
 ible to the one. With singular clearness and with 
 unfaltering conviction has that belief been ex- 
 pressed by Mr Herbert Spencer. No man insists 
 so strongly on the incomprehensible nature of the 
 Power at the base of the universe, yet no man 
 so confidently maintains the necessity that this 
 Power should comprehend lis. To Mr Spencer the 
 contact of the transcendental principle with the 
 life of man is no longer a possibility ; it is an ac- 
 complished fact. The God of Mr Herbert Spencer, 
 far short as He comes of the idea of Christian 
 theism, is identical with the God of Christian 
 theism in this, that He is a Presence not outside of 
 the world but in the world. The most essential 
 attribute about Him is just His omnipresence. He 
 does not create the world and die ; He does not 
 form the spheres and leave them to spin ; He is 
 every moment the cause of all existence, the reality 
 of all being, and the source of all movement : the 
 world only lives because He lives. 
 
 Now we have no hesitation in saying that the 
 doctrine of evolution as here represented is in our 
 view much more favourable to the belief in a
 
 92 Cnji the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 contact between the human and the Divine than 
 were those systems of Gnosticism which are com- 
 monly thought to have been that doctrine's special 
 allies. The statement may appear highly para- 
 doxical, and it is certainly contrary to the general 
 view. We are told again and again by advanced 
 thinkers that the faith in a community of image 
 between God and man is a faith which is super- 
 annuated. It was all very well for the days in 
 which the human spirit believed itself to be cap- 
 able by flights of ecstasy of rising beyond material 
 conditions ; but it is surely inadmissible in an age 
 in which material conditions are more and more 
 discerned as inseparable from the soul. Such is 
 the current language of advanced thought on this 
 subject. We hold, on the contrary, that were the 
 doctrine of evolution proved to be true, whatever 
 effect it might have upon other doctrines of theol- 
 ogy it would extend at least a friendly hand to 
 this. We hold that, just in proportion as it de- 
 stroyed the basis of Gnosticism, it would strengthen 
 our faith in the possibility of a union with God. 
 Gnosticism, the so-called ally of that doctrine, is 
 in our opinion its greatest enemy and gainsayer. 
 For, what is that on which Gnosticism insists as a 
 preliminary condition to the knowledge of God t 
 it is nothing less than the destruction of human 
 nature itself. It demands a state of ecstasy in 
 which the soul shall rise out of its own being. It
 
 Conditions reqnisite to Divine Knowledge. 93 
 
 asks the abandonment of sense, body, physical 
 perception, worldly contact, social intercourse, in- 
 dividual personality. It declares that in so far as 
 man is a denizen of the earth, he cannot be a 
 citizen of the heavens, and that his only chance of 
 communion with the Divine is to emancipate him- 
 self completely from the memories of the human : 
 what is this, but to say that man is not made in 
 the image of God ? 
 
 But the doctrine of evolution, as represented by 
 its leading apostle, is altogether the reverse of this. 
 It denies, indeed, that man has in him a transcen- 
 dental faculty — that is to say, a faculty by which 
 he can commune with things beyond the range of 
 experience. In this denial, the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion may be right or wrong ; it is not here our 
 province to inquire. But we wish to point out 
 that, as represented by Mr Spencer, this doctrine 
 has restored with the left hand what it abstracted 
 with the right. It denies that man has a tran- 
 scendental faculty, but it holds that his every 
 natural faculty comes from a transcendental source. 
 It denies that we have power, by crucifying the 
 present world, to come into contact with a super- 
 sensuous world ; but it holds that our contact with 
 the present world itself is the direct and immedi- 
 ate result of the contact of our souls with a super- 
 sensuous principle. It is not difficult to see that 
 a doctrine like this, while it seemingly curtails the
 
 94 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 boundary of the supernatural, has in reality a' 
 tendency to enlarge that boundary. Denying as 
 it does the position of Gnosticism, tliat there exists 
 in the human soul a faculty which transcends the 
 human, it has yet assigned to that soul a wider 
 field for the supernatural than Gnosticism ever 
 opened — the field of humanity itself It has ad- 
 mitted with Gnosticism that there is a Power 
 which transcends nature ; but it asserts that its 
 transcendence is discerned in nature. It recog- 
 nises, like Gnosticism, the presence of an incom- 
 prehensible principle ; but it professes to have 
 recognised that presence in the vision of those 
 common things which appeal to the experience 
 and the sense. Is it not evident that, in so doing, 
 the doctrine of evolution has given back more 
 than it took away .'' If it has denied that there is 
 any special faculty by which man can learn the 
 existence of a Power which transcends experience, 
 it has only made that denial in the interest of all 
 his other faculties. It claims for every power of 
 human nature what Gnosticism only claimed for 
 one. It tells us that we are so beset by the 
 presence and the manifestation of this inscrutable 
 P'orce in nature, that we have no need of a special 
 faculty to inform us of its existence ; that every 
 power of the human soul in every moment of its 
 being is compelled to testify to the being of a 
 Power which limits its own ; and that the very re-
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Knoivledge. 95 
 
 cognition of the limits of our experience is itself 
 the recognition of a principle which transcends 
 ourselves. 
 
 And this brings us naturally to ask, What, 
 scientifically, is man's special claim to have been 
 made in the image of God ? Mr Spencer tells us 
 that there is an inscrutable Force in contact with 
 all phenomena — nay, constituting by its contact 
 the existence of all phenomena. So far, then, 
 scientific experience is on the side of religious 
 experience ; it asserts that the Power which tran- 
 scends nature is yet not divided from nature — and 
 that therefore there is no inherent impossibility 
 in the earthly bearing the image of the heavenly. 
 Yet the very fact that this contact is universal, 
 ■ renders it insufficient to constitute the special 
 claim of man. To say that God is manifested in 
 every movement of the universe is an argument for 
 Divine providence, but it is not an argument for 
 any peculiar privilege conferred upon the human 
 soul. If I am asked. What is your evidence that 
 you as a human being possess a special likeness to 
 the Power which transcends nature 1 it will not do 
 for me to answer that I have proved this Power to 
 be resident and operative in everything. Such an 
 argument, if not supplemented by any other con- 
 sideration, would lead to the very opposite conclu- 
 sion from that which I seek to establish ; it would 
 prove that every creature is equally and simul-
 
 96 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezu ? 
 
 taneously in possession of the image of God, If 
 man is to make out any claim to be in any peculiar 
 sense the recipient of a Divine likeness, it can 
 only be maintained on the ground that there is in 
 him not only the manifestation but the distinctive 
 essence of the transcendental Power in a way that 
 it does not exist in the other objects of creation. 
 
 Can man make out this claim ? To answer that 
 question, let us first inquire whether, by the ad- 
 mission of the evolution theory, there is any fact 
 regarding the transcendental Power in nature 
 which has come to the knowledge of man ? It 
 must be answered that there is — the fact that 
 that Power is transcendental. To know that God 
 transcends experience is to know something about 
 Him. We have already seen that the idea of 
 something which transcends experience is an idea 
 which the human mind cannot possibly escape. 
 We have seen that this idea comes to us, not in 
 the study of any abstruse branch of science or 
 philosophy, but in the perception of the most 
 common objects, and in the walk of the most 
 everyday experience. We have seen that neither 
 by the supposition of atheism nor by the hypo- 
 thesis of an eternally existing universe can man 
 rid himself of the thought that what he calls 
 physical nature is not the limit of actual exist- 
 ence. Go where he may, and adopt what theory 
 he will, he is sooner or later confronted by the
 
 Conditions requisite to Divine Kiioii'ledgc. 97 
 
 adamantine wall and the barred gate, which re- 
 mind him at once of his own finitude, and of the 
 finitude of those things in which he has proposed 
 to place his trust. Not by following the path of 
 irreligion can he escape that conclusion which is 
 reached by the path of faith — that there is a world 
 which transcends the limits of human thought, and 
 a law which is not comprehended in the laws of 
 human experience. 
 
 It is not, therefore, only in the system of Mr 
 Herbert Spencer that we are obliged to recognise 
 the existence of a force which is inscrutable. The 
 same conclusion must be reached in one form or 
 other, not only by the theory of every system, but 
 by the experience of every life. But now let us 
 consider what this amounts to. It seems a light 
 thing, it seems even a humiliating thing, to say 
 that man has arrived at the knowledge of a limit 
 to his powers ; it is, in truth, one of the most 
 important and one of the most flattering conces- 
 sions which can be made to human nature. No 
 one can discover a limit to his present powers 
 without being himself already in advance of these 
 powers ; for it is only by his effort to pass beyond 
 them that he can ever find their boundaries to be 
 a prison. To say, therefore, that man has arrived 
 at the knowledge of a limit to his powers, is simply 
 equivalent to saying that man has arrived at the 
 knowledge that there exists a world of possibilities 
 
 G
 
 pS Can the Old Faith live ivith the Nezv ? 
 
 incommensurable by human experience ; in finding 
 the limit of nature he has reached the idea of a 
 transcendental Power. 
 
 But now, how has he reached this idea ? Let us 
 call to mind that principle with which we started 
 at the beginning of the present chapter — the prin- 
 ciple that like can only be known by like. Man 
 only knows that which is at some point already in 
 contact with his nature, and he only knows it 
 because it is, and in so far as it is, in such contact. 
 Knowledge is ever the proof of affinity, and the 
 impossibility of knowledge can only be based 
 upon the absence of affinity. Whence, then, has 
 man derived his discovery of the limit to his own 
 powers, or, which is the same thing, his discovery 
 that there is something which transcends his 
 powers .'' His knowledge, as we have seen, is 
 given in experience, but it is certainly not given 
 by experience. Experience, as such, cannot ex- 
 tend beyond the moment, cannot suggest any 
 thought not involved in the impression of the 
 hour. Man is not distinguished from the other 
 objects of the earthly creation by the fact that he 
 has a limited experience, but he is distinguished 
 from them by the fact that he alone is aware of 
 its limits. So far as the range of actual sense 
 extends, it cannot be said that he has the advan- 
 tage over the beast of the field or the bird of the 
 air. But what distin$xuishcs him from the beast
 
 Conditions I'cqnisite to Divine Knozvledge. 99 
 
 of the field and the bird of the air is the fact that, 
 with outward perceptions in many cases more 
 limited than they, he has arrived at a perception 
 which they have never arrived at — the knowledge 
 that he is limited. It is this which constitutes, and 
 must ever constitute, the distinctiveness of man. 
 The value of the discovery lies not in the discovery 
 itself To reach the conviction that we are cir- 
 cumscribed and narrowed on every side is not in 
 itself a boon ; the unconsciousness of the animal 
 creation would, were there nothing more than this, 
 be infinitely preferable. But then there is some- 
 thing more than this. The discovery of man's 
 limitation, like many other discoveries, derives its 
 value, not from what it is, but from what it proves. 
 It is apparently the awakening of the human soul to 
 the sense of its own impotence ; it is really its awak- 
 ening to the sense of its own greatness. In finding 
 the limit to his nature, man has already over- 
 stepped the boundary, and planted his feet upon 
 a transcendental world. In discovering the barrier 
 to his knowledge, he has reached the knowledge 
 that there is a law of life and of being beyond the 
 range of finite experience ; to know that his ex- 
 perience is transcended, is to know that there is 
 something which transcends it. How has man 
 acquired that knowledge? If like can only be 
 known by like, if there must be an affinity of 
 nature between the revelation and the being to
 
 loo Can the Old Faith live ivith the Neiv ? 
 
 whom it is revealed, the question can admit of 
 but one reply, Man has reached the knowledge 
 that there is something which transcends nature, 
 because that which transcends nature is already 
 existent within him ; he has arrived at the con- 
 viction that there is a Power beyond the limits of 
 his experience, because he himself has already in 
 thought surpassed these limits, and recognised his 
 relationship to the Power of the universe.
 
 Creation and Evolution. i o I 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 CREATION AND EVOLUTION. 
 
 In the course of the foregoing chapters we seem to 
 have arrived at a definite result, a result which, if 
 established, will itself constitute only a fresh be- 
 ginning. We have reached the conclusion that 
 the ancient hope of man in the possibility of a 
 Divine knowledge is not a superannuated hope, 
 not a belief which has been outgrown by the pro- 
 gress of modern research and the advance of 
 modern civilisation. We have found that, so far 
 from being destroyed by the spirit of Agnosticism, 
 it has recognised in the spirit of Agnosticism a 
 real, though an unconscious, ally. We have seen 
 that the beginning of man's knowledge of God is 
 just the sense of his ignorance of God, that his 
 first recognition of a world which transcends his 
 own is reached in the perception that his own 
 world is bounded : it is from the limits of his 
 nature that he has derived the thought of a region 
 which is supernatural. This thought, however,
 
 I02 Can the Oid Faith live ivitJi the Nezv ? 
 
 derived as it has been from the discovery of 
 human feebleness, and suggested as it is by the 
 very spirit of negation, is, now that it has been 
 found, a real and positive fact of knowledge. In 
 reaching the conception that there is a life which 
 transcends experience, man has himself already 
 transcended his experience and claimed an affinity 
 with that life. He could not entertain for a 
 moment the idea of a Power which goes beyond 
 the conditions of his earthly being, if he were not 
 in some sense himself beyond them. His recogni- 
 tion of a transcendental element — nay, his very 
 aspiration to recognise such an element — is a proof 
 that already he is greater potentially than he is 
 actually, and that the range of his human sus- 
 ceptibilities surpasses the extent of his earthly 
 possessions. 
 
 But we have now to observe that, if we are will- 
 ing to concede so much, we must of necessity 
 concede more ; this end, as we have said, is only a 
 new beginning. If there be a Power which tran- 
 scends the order of nature, and if man has arrived 
 at the knowledge of this transcendence, he has 
 arrived at that knowledge through an affinity of 
 his own being to the being of the transcending 
 Power. Whence has man derived this affinity? 
 I.et the fact of its existence be granted, and there 
 can be only one answer; he must have derived it 
 from an impartation made by the Power itself
 
 Creation and Evolution. 103 
 
 But in making such a statement we have already- 
 passed from theory into history, from the philoso- 
 phising about the nature of God to a positive 
 affirmation regarding the acts of God. To say 
 that, in any sense, either man or any other creature 
 of the universe is possessed of the Divine image, 
 is to say that there has already taken place in the 
 universe an act of creation, an act by which God 
 has imparted Himself, communicated Himself, 
 shared Himself. It is, therefore, in strict logical 
 sequence with the foregoing subject that we pass 
 from the possibility of Divine knowledge to the 
 asserted fact of Divine creation. If man can know 
 God, he can only know Him on the ground of an 
 affinity of nature, and he can only claim an affinity 
 of nature on the ground that God has imparted 
 Himself to his own soul. 
 
 We must now, therefore, proceed to ask with 
 regard to the doctrine of creation the same ques- 
 tion which we have asked concerning the possi- 
 bility of Divine knowledge — Is it compatible with 
 modern science t There are two words which in 
 our days are constantly opposed — creation and 
 evolution. The one is regarded as the watchword 
 of a theological past, the other is viewed as the 
 sj^mbol of the scientific present. But it is not 
 merely the words that are placed in antithesis ; it 
 is the things which they signify. The idea of 
 creation is supposed to be incompatible with the
 
 I04 Can the Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 idea of evolution, and the process of evolution is 
 held to be a disproof of the act of creation. It is 
 said that the very conception of evolution implies 
 that something has been eternal. To suppose an 
 absolute beginning of all things, is to suppose that 
 the first existence began to be by a totally differ- 
 ent process from the evolution process. On this 
 account Mr Herbert Spencer does not hesitate to 
 deny "an absolute commencement of anything."^ 
 He feels that to assume the coming into existence 
 of a first principle is virtually to reject the evolution 
 theory as an adequate explanation of the universe ; 
 and in this view we agree with him. But we have 
 already pointed out that Mr Spencer will here 
 experience no opposition from the theist. The 
 theist does not, any more than he, accept the pos- 
 sibility of an absolute beginning. He, like Mr 
 Spencer, believes that the primal force which 
 underlies the universe is eternal, only he gives to 
 that force the name and attribute of personality. 
 Whatever difference lies between the creationist 
 and the evolutionist, this at least does not con- 
 stitute one of its elements. The evolutionist 
 speaks of an evolving principle, and the creation- 
 ist speaks of a creative principle ; but they both 
 alike insist that the principle must be eternal. 
 Nay, they both alike insist on something more — 
 
 ^ See tlic letter appeiulcti to the fust part of his ' Principles of 
 Biology.'
 
 Creation and Evolution. 105 
 
 that the principle shall itself be free from the 
 changes which it originates. The Force of Mr 
 Herbert Spencer, evolving, as it does, all other 
 forces, is itself unchangeable ; the God of natural 
 theology, creating as He does all other existences, 
 is Himself immutable. So far the two systems are 
 at one. 
 
 We are ourselves disposed to go further. It 
 seems to us that the theological doctrine of crea- 
 tion does not necessarily demand even that the 
 matter of the world should have had a beginning 
 at all. We pointed out that there are three con- 
 ceivable views which may be taken of the world's 
 origin ; we may either say that it began by chance, 
 or that it began by creative Intelligence, or that it 
 never began. In estimating the value of these 
 alternatives, we have already stated our opinion 
 that the two last are not mutually exclusive. It 
 is possible to hold that the world owes its exist- 
 ence entirely to the creative power of God, and 
 yet at the same time to maintain that the world 
 had no historical beginning : this was the view of 
 Plato in pre-Christian days, and of Clement and 
 Origen in the bosom of the Christian Church itself. 
 We see a ray of light emanating from the sun, and 
 we say that the ray of light owes its being to the 
 sun. If it were proved that there never was a 
 time in which that ray had not existed, it would 
 not in the slightest degree shake our conclusion
 
 io6 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the Nciv ? 
 
 that it owes its existence to the sun. What makes 
 it a created or dependent object is not the fact 
 that at one time it began to be, but the fact that 
 at every time it is simply an emanation — that it 
 has not at any moment of its being a spark of 
 heat or light which it does not derive from its 
 contact with that source from which it radiates. 
 There is therefore no necessary antagonism be- 
 tween the doctrine of a Divine creation and the 
 doctrine of a world whose matter had no historical 
 beginning. The theist holds that the matter of 
 the world has a perpetual beginning out ^y history. 
 He holds that in every moment of its existence 
 the world is a created work. He does not look 
 upon it as something which God once made, but 
 which now supports itself; he views it as some- 
 thing which has never been able for an instant to 
 support itself, which is indebted for its every hour 
 of being to the creative will of another, and which, 
 had it even no historical beginning, can never be 
 viewed as aught but the product of a higher 
 power. 
 
 There is not, then, any antecedent incompati- 
 bility between the claims of evolution and the 
 claims of creation. They are both at one in 
 holding that there never has been an absolute 
 beginning — that there never was a time in which 
 some power did not exist. We go on, therefore, 
 to ask whether this alleged incompatibility lies in
 
 Creation and Evolution. 107 
 
 the distinctive natures of the two systems them- 
 selves. Is there anything in the definition of the 
 word " evokition " which renders it an opposite 
 conception to the idea involved in the word " crea- 
 tion " ? Perhaps we shall best arrive at a solution 
 of this question by placing side by side the two 
 most representative systems of creationism and 
 evolutionism — the system of the Book of Genesis 
 and the system of Mr Herbert Spencer. 
 
 Mr Herbert Spencer gives the following defini- 
 tion of the word "evolution": "Evolution is an 
 integration of matter and concomitant dissipation 
 of motion, during which the matter passes from an 
 indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite 
 coherent heterogeneity, and during which the re- 
 tained motion undergoes a parallel transforma- 
 tion."^ The first thing to which we have here to 
 direct our attention is the word " during." This 
 word marks something which is frequently sup- 
 posed to denote the opposite of creation ; we mean 
 the fact that evolution is not an act but a process. 
 It indicates that the formation of this world was 
 not something which was begun and ended in a 
 moment, in the twinkling of an eye, but some- 
 thing which was elaborated step by step, and 
 Avrought out day by day. Such a difference be- 
 tween the conception of nature as a sudden 
 emergence into being, and the conception of nature 
 
 ^ First Principles, § 145, chap. xvii. p. 396.
 
 io8 Can the Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 as a gradual growth and development, has been 
 always supposed to mark the distinction between 
 the ancient and the modern spirit, — between the 
 ages when man thought unscientifically and the 
 age when he has begun to think on the lines of 
 science. 
 
 Nor is the supposition, in its essence, an erro- 
 neous one. The ancient conception of creative 
 power was certainly the conception of a force 
 acting instantaneously, and the force was con- 
 sidered to be grandly manifested just in pro- 
 portion to its instantaneousness. But this only 
 serves to render more conspicuous one prominent 
 exception to the rule — the narrative of the Book 
 of Genesis. Here is confessedly the most majestic 
 description of creative power ever given by the 
 pen of man. Yet here, in the most ancient of 
 times, we find an anticipation, not indeed of 
 modern science, but of that spirit which led to 
 modern science — the tendency to view nature as a 
 process. Let us suppose that for the first time 
 the opening chapter of Genesis had now been 
 revealed to the eyes of the world. Let us suppose 
 that, instead of being the best-known fact of litera- 
 ture, it had been suddenly and unexpectedly dis- 
 covered in our own days amidst the archives of 
 the past. Let us further imagine that it presented 
 itself to our view not with any claim to inspiration 
 which mifjht create an adverse bias in the scientific
 
 Ci'cation and Evolution. 1C9 
 
 mind, but simply and solely as the product of an 
 ancient literary era, and as the work of a specula- 
 tive mind. We ask, What would in scientific circles 
 be the first impression created by such a discovery? 
 It would be one of mingled respect and. wonder. 
 It would be respect for a speculative power which 
 had come so much nearer to the modern spirit 
 than all contemporary literatures, and it would be 
 wonder that in so primitive an age such a view 
 of nature should have been entertained. The 
 revelation made to the scientific mind would be a 
 revelation of the fact, that in a period of remote 
 antiquity, in an age of primitive culture, in a day 
 when the very elements of science were unknown, 
 there had lived a man who had not been afraid to 
 say that the creation of the world had not been an 
 act but a process, — who had dared to affirm, in 
 opposition to all his predecessors, and in contrast 
 with all his contemporaries, that the method by 
 which the world was made was a method slow 
 and gradual, rising from the smallness of first be- 
 ginnings, and adding quality to quality, until it 
 reached in the fulness of time the symmetry of a 
 completed whole. 
 
 Nor would the wonder of the scientific mind be 
 lessened by the reflection that the author of this 
 remarkable poem was a Hebrew. The knowledge 
 of his origin would increase beyond measure the 
 marvel. It would be seen that for a Hebrew to
 
 I lo Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neio ? 
 
 say that the creation of the earth was gradual, was 
 not a natural thing — not a thing to be expected 
 from the tendency of his religion. The tendency 
 of his religion is well known to have been in the 
 opposite direction — towards, we do not say an 
 ejcaggerated viezv, but an exaggerated expression 
 of the power of God. The leading article of the 
 Hebrew's creed' was just the doctrine of Divine 
 power, just the belief that there reigned in the 
 heavens One whose will was omnipotent, whose 
 mandate was irresistible, and from whose sentence 
 there could be no appeal. The wonder would be 
 that to a man holding such a view of God, the 
 notion of a gradual creation should ever for a 
 moment have suggested itself. The writer of the 
 first chapter of Genesis, in attributing to God a 
 six days' work of creation, did certainly not be- 
 lieve that he was thereby recording the marvellous 
 rapidity of His working ; it would have been more 
 natural for Him to say that God made the world 
 in six seconds. The fact that he did not say so — 
 the fact that, contrary to the genius of his religion, 
 he described the creative work of God as extending 
 through evenings and mornings — is a proof that 
 there must have been in his mind some sense of 
 scientific congruity, which led him to keep in abey- 
 ance the spontaneous national instinct. 
 
 It may be said, however, that the narrative of 
 creation, as given in the first chapter of Genesis,
 
 Creation and Evolution. 1 1 1 
 
 is, after all, the narrative of a creative power which 
 acts by its own absolute will without the inter- 
 vention of intermediate or secondary means. If 
 it be so, we shall indeed be driven to conclude 
 that this narrative of creation is incompatible with 
 the doctrine of scientific evolution. The doctrine 
 of evolution, in whatever form it may be cast, is 
 built on the recognition of the fact that the world 
 was formed through the agency of material means, 
 and any system of creation which denies the in- 
 tervention of such means is shut out on the 
 threshold from all comparison with it, and from 
 all possibility of alliance. 
 
 But is it so .'' Is the doctrine of creation, as 
 exhibited in the first chapter of Genesis, the doc- 
 trine of an absolute Power acting by His own 
 mandate, and dispensing with the use of any inter- 
 mediate agency ? We have no hesitation in saying 
 that this is not the view of the subject which the 
 writer of the first chapter of Genesis intends to 
 convey. We admit, indeed, that his language 
 would at first suggest such an impression of his 
 meaning, but it is not difficult to explain why his 
 language must have done so. Let us remember 
 that, however much he may have been above the 
 level of his contemporaries, this man, after all, was 
 a Hebrew. Let us remember that, to the Hebrew 
 race from the very beginning of their religious 
 history, the presence of God was a universal
 
 1 1 2 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 presence. His God was not a being who came 
 forth only in great catastrophes, and revealed 
 Himself only in striking judgments ; He acted 
 everywhere and always, in the little alike as in 
 the great, in the falling of a sparrow as powerfully 
 as in the shaking of an empire. Hence for every 
 event of life, however it might be produced, the 
 Hebrew had one formula, " God said." He saw 
 in everything the product of the will, the work of 
 the hand, of God ; and he admitted the co-oper- 
 ation of no second cause.'^ But that is a very 
 different thing from saying that he recognised the 
 action of no material agency. The Hebrew ac- 
 knowledged no second causes — not because he 
 denied the action of material agencies, but because 
 he held these agencies themselves to be only the 
 instruments of God ; he refused to recognise their 
 co-operation, but he never for a moment doubted 
 their serviec. So far was the Hebrew from denying 
 that the will of God could operate through material 
 servants, that, in point of fact, he did not admit any 
 other form of Divine operation. He did not acknow- 
 ledge that God ever did reveal Himself directly to 
 the human soul. It was only through His agents 
 that God ever spoke to man. When He desired to 
 commune with the human, He had to make the 
 winds His messengers, and the flaming fires His 
 ministers. That the Eternal should meet face to 
 
 ^ .See Ih'is esjiecially illustrated in Psalm xxix.
 
 Creation a}id Evolution. 1 1 3 
 
 face with His creatures, was a thought which the 
 Hebrew could not conceive. No man could see 
 God and live, nor could the course of history pro- 
 gress in the unveiled presence of God. To meet 
 the face of man, to conduct the events of history, 
 the Eternal had to veil His presence — had to 
 clothe Himself in the garments of time — had to 
 speak in the language of men, — had to employ 
 the agency of material things. 
 
 It will be seen from this that the modern con- 
 ception of evolution, as expressed in the definition 
 of Mr Herbert Spencer, does not necessarily differ 
 from the ancient view of creation as regards the 
 agency of material means. The system of Mr 
 Spencer looks upon the process of evolution as 
 something which is effected through the operation 
 of physical forces ; the system of creation de- 
 lineated by the writer of Genesis, does not contain 
 anything which either expressly or implicitly pre- 
 cludes the operation of such forces. Thus far our 
 investigation has already led us. But now we 
 must ask if, from a study of the document before 
 us, we are not entitled to go further. We have 
 said that there is nothing in the first chapter of 
 Genesis which precludes the view of the evolution 
 principle that the formation of the world is effected 
 through the intervention of material forces; does 
 an examination of this chapter not warrant us to 
 say more } We have seen that in other parts of 
 
 H
 
 1 1 4 Can the Old Faith live with the A^ezv ? 
 
 the Hebrew Scriptures the action of God in tlie 
 affairs of men is uniformly represented as a mediate 
 action, — as something which works through finite 
 instruments. If we look at the narrative of this 
 chapter, we shall find that the initial and creative 
 act of God is no exception to the rule. It is a 
 mistake to imagine that, even in form, the Hebrew 
 narrative of creation is simply the record of a work 
 which was effected without agencies by the im- 
 perative mandate of an omnipotent will. As a 
 matter of fact, the mandate is not the first thing, 
 but the agency. Before God says, " Let there be 
 light," it is very significantly stated that the Spirit 
 or breath of God moved upon the face of the 
 waters. We say that the statemicnt is significant, 
 because it implies more than it expresses. It 
 introduces at the very beginning something which 
 is intermediate between the Worker and His 
 work ; and, by introducing this intermediate 
 agency at the beginning, it evidently designs to 
 signify that its action was to pervade the whole 
 creation from its opening to its closing day. It 
 evidently intends to suggest that the world was 
 not produced merely by the word of God's mouth, 
 nor by the mandate of His will, but that it owed 
 its being to the co-operation of His will with the 
 action of certain forces which the breath of His 
 Spirit had set into motion. 
 
 For this leads us to ask, What was this primitive.
 
 Creation and Evohttion. 1 1 5 
 
 intermediate agency which, according to the Book 
 of Genesis, originated the present system of things ? 
 We should naturally have expected that this very 
 ancient and unscientific document, if it had in- 
 tended to allow God's creative act to operate 
 through any intermediate agency, would have de- 
 clared this agency to be matter. But the agency 
 which is postulated by the Book of Genesis is not 
 matter, but force, — " The Spirit of God moved upon 
 the face of the waters." This ancient assertion 
 sounds singularly modern and specially Spencerian. 
 Mr Herbert Spencer himself holds that the origin 
 of all things is force, or that which has power to 
 produce movement. It may be said, indeed, that 
 Mr Spencer's force is physical, while that evoked 
 by the writer of Genesis is confessedly spiritual. 
 It must be remembered, however, that in the view 
 of Mr Spencer force is not physical at all ; it is, 
 in its ultimate nature, perfectly inscrutable. We 
 speak popularly of material forces. The expres- 
 sion is not inapplicable when it is intended to 
 describe the movements of matter ; but when it 
 is used to indicate the cause of that motion, it is, 
 in the view of Mr Spencer, a simple metaphor. 
 Mr Spencer does not admit that we have yet dis- 
 covered the agent of what we call physical motion, 
 and least of all does he admit that we have dis- 
 covered this agent in matter. Nor does Mr Spencer 
 stand alone in claiming for the idea of force an
 
 1 1 6 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neic ? 
 
 origin outside the boundaries of what we designate 
 matter. It is not too much to say that he is fol- 
 lowed in this view by the majority of evolutionists, 
 and that his majority is constantly increasing. 
 Science has been called materialistic ; yet science 
 in its most advanced form does not even allow to 
 matter those powers which are commonly supposed 
 to be peculiarly its own. In one sense the modern 
 doctrine of evolution comes nearer to the theolo- 
 gical standpoint than most of its scientific pre- 
 . decessors. The theologian believes that matter 
 has no powers of its own, that all its properties 
 have been impressed upon it by an omnipotent 
 Will. The modern evolutionist also believes that 
 matter has no powers of its own ; and although, 
 as a man of science, he will not commit himself to 
 assign to these powers an origin, he confesses, 
 along with the theologian, that they are impressed 
 upon matter from a source which transcends ex- 
 perience. 
 
 The statement of the Book of Genesis, that the 
 formative principle of the universe was movement, 
 is, in that early age, a very remarkable doctrine. 
 That movement should have preceded the exist- 
 ence of light is not a natural supposition, not a 
 supposition in accordance with the appearance of 
 things. Yet this is one of the few statements 
 of antiquity concerning the constitution of physical 
 nature which modern science has not reversed. 
 As a matter of fact, we now know not only that
 
 Creation and Evolution. 1 1 7 
 
 movement preceded the existence of light, but that 
 light would never have had any existence if move- 
 ment had not preceded it ; that light owes its 
 ultimate origin neither to the sun nor to any other 
 luminary, but to those movements or vibrations of 
 ether which are necessary to the existence of all 
 suns and of all luminaries. And what is scientifi- 
 cally true of light is scientifically true of matter as 
 a whole. It seems to us, that so far is matter from 
 being able to explain its own movement, that the 
 movement is itself required to account for the 
 existence of matter. All matter presupposes force 
 as a condition of its being. If matter possesses 
 force inherently, where does it lie .'' Does it lie 
 in the masses of solid bodies .'' These masses are 
 themselves kept together by a force of cohesion ; 
 force is the cause, and not the effect, of their being. 
 Does it He in those minute atoms which are sup- 
 posed to constitute the ultimate material elements .-' 
 We maintain that even these presuppose the exist- 
 ence of force. If an atom has any size at all, its 
 magnitude is just as much held together by a force 
 of cohesion as is the magnitude of the densest 
 masses ; and if it is altogether without size, then 
 matter has vanished away and force reigns su- 
 preme. On these grounds we are constrained to 
 hold that the earliest and most representative 
 statement of the doctrine of creation has in one of 
 its main positions been borne out and homologat- 
 ed by the latest view of the doctrine of evolution.
 
 1 1 8 Can the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 Alike in the system of Mr Herbert Spencer and 
 in the system of him who wrote the first chapter 
 of the Book of Genesis, the primal agency from 
 which the world originated was not matter but 
 movement. The difference between them does 
 not lie here ; it lies in their view of that agency 
 which moves. Mr Spencer, admitting, as he does 
 and must, that movement requires a mover, is yet 
 unwilling to commit himself to a definition of that 
 power whose existence and action he acknow- 
 ledges ; the writer of Genesis, influenced, perhaps, 
 by the reflection that the power exhibited by nature 
 is an exhibition of his own image, is not afraid to 
 define the agency which creates that power as a 
 spiritual intelligence manifesting the attributes of 
 personality and revealing the prerogatives of will. 
 
 Let us now return to Mr Spencer's definition of 
 evolution. We have seen that in two respects it 
 does not differ from that conception which is com- 
 monly called the system of creation. In holding 
 the formation of the earth to have been not an act 
 but a process, it is in harmony with that old nar- 
 rative of Genesis which, in spite of the writer's 
 natural temptation to accelerate the action of 
 God, was not ashamed to represent Him as work- 
 ing out His purpose by slow and progressive 
 stages. In holding, again, that the process by 
 which the formation was effected was the subjec- 
 tion of matter to the action of certain movements,
 
 Creation and Evolution. 119 
 
 it IS once more in harmony with a narrative which 
 places at the basis of all things the movement of 
 a mighty force, by which the earth was fashioned 
 into order in the fulness of the days. 
 
 But if we resume a study of Mr Spencer's def- 
 inition, we shall find that the parallel between 
 them is yet more pronounced and significant. 
 What is the nature of that transition which, ac- 
 cording to Mr Spencer, the earth undergoes under 
 the action of the formative force .'' Let us quote 
 his own words. He says, " Evolution is an integra- 
 tion of matter and concomitant dissipation of 
 motion, during which the matter passes from an 
 indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite co- 
 herent heterogeneity." There are three things which, 
 in the view of Mr Spencer, are here said to have 
 constituted the characteristics of the primitive or 
 unformed matter of the earth. First, it was in- 
 definite ; it was of such a confused nature that 
 nothing could be affirmed concerning it. Secondly, 
 it was incoherent : its parts did not cling together ; 
 they wanted the bond of connection which now 
 makes them one. Thirdly, it was homogeneous : 
 it had no distinction in its qualities ; all its pre- 
 sent varieties constituted originally one liquid 
 mass, which at once enclosed and concealed its 
 future possibilities. Now, if we turn to the first 
 chapter of Genesis, we shall not fail to be struck 
 with the fact that the primitive matter of the earth
 
 1 20 Can the Old Faith live zuith the New ? 
 
 is there represented as having occupied a similar, 
 if not an identical position. Here, too, we have 
 three distinct affirmations made as to the state of 
 the unformed world. We are first told that it was 
 without form ; in other words, that it was indefi- 
 nite — that its various parts had not been so limited 
 as to render their proportions discernible. We are 
 next informed that it was void ; in other words, 
 that it was incoherent — that its various parts had 
 not been so joined as to make them a solid unity. 
 We are finally made aware that it was comprehen- 
 sible under a single name, the deep ; in other 
 words, that it was homogeneous — that its various 
 parts were prevented from displaying their variety 
 by the fact that each and all of them were en- 
 veloped in a mass of water. 
 
 These, then, according to the Book of Genesis, 
 were the primitive elements of the unformed world, 
 and the elements out of which that world was to be 
 constructed. Let us ask now, not what was to be 
 \.\\Q process of construction, but v/hat was to be the 
 plan of construction. The process lies as much 
 beyond the discerning power of the evolutionist 
 as it transcends the mind of him who adheres to 
 the system of crcationism. But evolution in the 
 person of Mr Herbert Spencer has traced out retro- 
 spectively the work actually achieved, and he has 
 expressed the result in the very formula of his 
 definition. He finds that the primitive matter
 
 Creation and Evolution. 
 
 121 
 
 existed in three states — indefiniteness, incoherence, 
 and homogeneity. He finds that the work of the 
 evolution principle has been the transformation of 
 these states into their contraries ; the indefinite 
 has become defined, the incoherent has become 
 coherent, the homogeneous has become hetero- 
 geneous. We have found that the opening chap- 
 ter of Genesis exhibits the primitive matter in pre- 
 cisely the same conditions; it is without form or 
 indefinite, it is void or incoherent, and it exhibits 
 the homogeneous character of a liquid deep. If 
 we look at the creative principle as represented in 
 this chapter, we shall find that the work achieved 
 by it is precisely that work which, in the view of 
 Mr Spencer, has been achieved by the principle 
 of evolution — the transformation of these states 
 into their contraries. Here, too, the indefinite 
 becomes the defined, and that which was without 
 form assumes a distinctive symmetry. Here, too, 
 the incoherent becomes the coherent, and that 
 which revealed the presence of voidness or empti- 
 ness fills up its vacant spaces, and constitutes a 
 united creation. Here, too, above all, because in- 
 cluding all, the homogeneous becomes the hetero- 
 geneous ; and those qualities whose differences 
 were indistinguishable through their absorption in 
 a liquid element, emerge from the deep that over- 
 whelms them, and reveal the varieties of their being. 
 This is a far more important consideration than
 
 1 22 Can the Old Faith live tvith the New ? 
 
 the question to which apologists, in reviewing the 
 opening chapter of Genesis, have usually directed 
 their attention — the question whether the six days 
 of creation correspond in the order of their nar- 
 ratives to the periods recorded by evolution. Be- 
 lieving, as we do, and as, indeed, is generally con- 
 ceded, that there is a substantial agreement in the 
 main features of each record, we are yet of opinion 
 that the discovery of such a harmony is a very 
 secondary advantage. It has never seemed to us 
 that the dignity of this narrative of creation lay 
 in its being an almanac. We have always held 
 that, apart altogether from questions of its author- 
 ship, it ought to be interpreted as the visions of the 
 prophets are interpreted ; in other words, to be 
 classed with those portions of Jewish literature 
 whose mission was to teach in symbols. It de- 
 scribes the work of creation as the work of creation 
 would have appeared to a beholder.^ It does not 
 enter into the delineation of internal processes ; 
 it does not describe what goes on underground. 
 To the writer of this chapter the object only be- 
 comes a creation when it becomes capable of being 
 seen — in other words, when it reaches the surface. 
 There is no description of the germ-cells of things, 
 whether in the world of vegetal or in the world of 
 animal life, or in that world — if such there be — 
 
 ^ This, as is well known, is the view ailvocated by Hugh Miller 
 in his ' Testimony of the Rocks.'
 
 Creation and EvolutioJi. 123 
 
 which originally comprehended both in one. We 
 have no record of the time when marine plants 
 began to be, nor of the hour when the first and 
 most primitive forms of animal life originated in 
 the depths of ocean. This writer measures creation, 
 not by scientific analysis, but by the glance of his 
 eye; and he only records what is commensurate 
 with the record of the eye. The marine plants are 
 left out of view because they are out of view ; the 
 primitive life-forms in the depths of ocean are dis- 
 regarded by reason of the depth at which they 
 dwell. The vegetation which he beholds is the 
 visible vegetation which emerges from the surface 
 of the land ; the animated forms which he describes 
 are the forms which float on the surface of the 
 Vv'aters, or occupy the crust of the earth, or fly in 
 the open vault of heaven. By the time these ob- 
 jects have reached his eye, they are already dis- 
 tinctly separated from one another ; each is " after 
 its kind." Yet that man would be deceived who 
 should thence conclude that the writer of Genesis 
 meant by anticipation to refute the theory of Dar- 
 winism, or to prove the original diversity of species. 
 There is no thought in his mind either of estab- 
 lishing an original diversity or of proving an 
 original unity ; he describes the creation of each 
 form neither in its process nor in its progress, but 
 simply in its visible completeness. His eye is 
 directed exclusively to the end oi the process. In
 
 1 24 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezu ? 
 
 the true spirit of Hebraism, he sees that whatever 
 has been the latest result must have been the 
 earliest Divine thought, the design for which the 
 work was planned and fashioned. In the spirit 
 of the same Hebraism he sees that, however pro- 
 tracted this latest result may have been, it must 
 be viewed as to all intents and purposes an imme- 
 diate product of the sovereign Will. Therefore it 
 is that, in recording the annals of creation, he is 
 content to leave out of view the steps which inter- 
 vene between the fiat and its fulfilment, and pro- 
 ceeds at once to connect the end with the begin- 
 ning, — " he Lord said ; and it was so." 
 
 On these grounds, then, we do not regard the 
 establishment of a strict historical parallel between 
 the six days of creation and the many periods of 
 evolution as a matter of much consequence. But, 
 as we have said, it is a point of far more import- 
 ance to determine whether the principle on which 
 the six days' creation was conducted be identical 
 with that principle on which the lines of evolution 
 have proceeded. We have found, without any 
 theorising and without any need of subtle disquisi- 
 tion, that it has actually been so. We have seen 
 that the simple statement of the narrative bears 
 witness to the fact that the idea contemplated by 
 the writer of Genesis in describing the work of 
 creation was to delineate its progress " from an 
 indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite
 
 Creation and Evolution. 125 
 
 coherent heterogeneity." And when we proceed 
 from the simple statement of that original condition 
 from which matter was to be raised, to consider 
 the actual description of the steps by which it tvas 
 raised, we find that every one of these steps is a 
 fresh progress towards Mr Spencer's ideal. We 
 find that at every stage of the creative process the 
 homogeneous is passing more and more into the 
 character of the heterogeneous — in other words, that 
 things which originally were indistinguishable from 
 one another are breaking up from their primitive 
 unity and assuming diversities of structure. There 
 is first a division in that darkness which broods 
 over the face of the great deep ; the Divine breath 
 moves upon the waters, and those forces of nature 
 begin to play which result in the production of 
 electrical light. ^ By-and-by the darkness is yet 
 more thoroughly broken, as the constitution of the 
 globe is developed into the susceptibility of receiv- 
 ing the influence of the solar beams. There is 
 next a breaking up of the great deep itself, and 
 that in two directions — from above and from within. 
 In the process of condensation the aqueous are 
 separated from the metallic vapours, and a canopy 
 of clouds is formed : there is seen a dividing fir- 
 mament in the midst of the waters. But in the 
 heart of the earth itself there is going on another 
 
 ^ Electricity would be produced by the contact between the water 
 of the sea and the internal fire of the globe.
 
 1 26 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the Neiv ? 
 
 dividing process which is not less potent and not 
 less important. The solid masses which have been 
 accumulating through condensation are gradually 
 upheaved from the depths towards the surface of 
 the waters. At first they are only upheaved in 
 order to be engulfed again ; but by degrees their 
 strength is so consolidated as to resist with success 
 the encroachment of the subterranean element ; 
 the division of earth and firmament is followed by 
 the division of land and sea. Then comes the 
 division of the land itself. At first it seems to be 
 homogeneous, capable of producing only one form 
 of objects ; but this original appearance is soon to 
 be superseded. The homogeneous earth breaks 
 forth into varieties, and each variety is marked by 
 a more distinct individuality. Life as it appears 
 on the surface of the earth ascends by a series of 
 stages from the carboniferous flora to the primal 
 man, and at each stage the separation of the life 
 from the element out of which it was taken be- 
 comes more complete and more indubitable. In 
 the ascent from the herb yielding seed after its 
 kind to the life that is made in the image of God, 
 we have a series of transitions from homogeneity 
 into heterogeneity in which the individual form 
 becomes more and more individualistic, and asserts 
 more and more its difference from surrounding 
 things. 
 
 We are now, however, brought to the threshold
 
 Creation and Evolution. 127 
 
 of a question which lies at the very basis of the 
 evolution principle, and is supposed also to lie at 
 the basis of the narrative of Genesis. We have 
 spoken of a series of transitions which are involved 
 in the description of the six days' creation ; the 
 question is, What is the nature of these transitions ? 
 Is each of them to be regarded as a special creative 
 act, calling into life a new order of being? The 
 entrance of each of them upon the stage of time 
 is prefixed by the words " The Lord said." Does 
 this mean that each stage of creation is a completed 
 act, which has no power to propagate itself, but 
 which must wait for another fiat to find a step 
 above itself If so, then the system of creation 
 involved in the first chapter of Genesis is really the 
 history of a series of creations. Now the modern 
 doctrine of evolution distinctly declares that such 
 a conception cuts at the very root of its principle. 
 It says that to introduce a succession of special 
 acts, each one of which arises from the man- 
 date of a creative will, is in so many words to 
 deny the truth of the evolution doctrine. It afifirms 
 that the evolution doctrine demands, before all 
 other things, the admission that there exists in 
 nature a principle of continuity — a principle by 
 which one order of being is so closely linked to 
 another that there is no room and no need for any 
 power to intervene between the parts of the chain. 
 It holds that the human has grown out of the ani-
 
 128 Can the Old Faith live ivith the Neiu ? 
 
 mal, and that the animal has developed from the 
 vegetable. Nay, the thorough-going evolutionist 
 goes further. He cannot admit that life itself is a 
 break in the universal chain, and in what we call 
 the beginnings of life he refuses to see a beginning. 
 He is not content to trace back the human to the 
 animal, and the animal to the vegetable ; he is 
 disposed to hold that vegetable life is itself the 
 link of a preceding chain, the result of a process of 
 development which travels back into the indefinite 
 past. The unity of species which he seeks is really 
 a unity of nature. He will not be satisfied with 
 finding that there is a community of life pervading 
 the plant, the animal, and the man ; he seeks to 
 discover whether that community of nature which 
 pervades the plant, the animal, and the man is not 
 also common to the whole system of the universe. 
 He desires to connect the man with the earth from 
 which he sprung, to connect the earth from which 
 he sprung with the solar system on which it 
 is dependent, and to connect the solar system 
 itself with the united system of the universe : in 
 the ultimate and the lowest forms of matter he 
 would find the promise and the potence of life. 
 Such is the doctrine of evolution carried out to its 
 last analysis — a doctrine whose tendency is ulti- 
 mately to obliterate all varieties and reduce the 
 many to the one. Whether the evidence for such 
 a doctrine be strong or weak, it is no part of our
 
 Creation and Evolution. 1 29 
 
 province here to determine ; whether it be strong 
 or weak in the facts which support it, it represents 
 the goal to which is tending the spirit of modern 
 science. The question which we have to consider 
 is, How would the attainment of such a goal affect 
 the belief of the theist ? how would the demonstra- 
 tion, that all varieties were originally one, contrib- 
 ute to influence that religious sentiment which in 
 all places and at all times has seen in the varieties 
 of nature the evidence of a special creation ? The 
 consideration of this question must be reserved for 
 the next chapter.
 
 I ^o Can the Old Faith live luith the New ? 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND SPECIAL CREATION. 
 
 The preceding chapter led us to the conclusion 
 that there is no necessary or essential opposition 
 between the idea of evolution and the idea of crea- 
 tion in general. We found that even were it proved 
 that there had been no historical beginning of the 
 world, it would not in the smallest degree invali- 
 date the theistic argument in favour of the world's 
 Divine origin. We found that the idea of creation 
 is not essentially connected with the thought of a 
 historical beginning ; that the devout believer in a 
 creative Power believes the creative Power to be 
 exerted in giving life to the universe every mo- 
 ment ; and that the exertion of such an agency is 
 not only compatible with, but is actually asserted 
 by, the most pronounced form of the doctrine of 
 evolution. 
 
 Put if there is no opposition between the idea of 
 evolution and the idea of creation in general, we 
 have still to ask if there is no opposition between
 
 Evohition and Special Creation. 131 
 
 the idea of evolution and the doctrine of a special 
 creation. It is here that we are met by the the- 
 ory which seems to decide the question against 
 creationism almost without need of argument — 
 the theory of the unity of species. This is the 
 doctrine which commonly goes by the name of 
 Darwinism, but which under this name seems to us 
 to give a very limited view of the real scope of the 
 evolutionist. Darwinism only professes to find the 
 unity of life; evolution in its completed form 
 aspires to find the unity of all things. The doc- 
 trine of the unity of species would at present be 
 better indicated by the name of Spencerism than 
 by that of Darwinism, for it is in the hands of Mr 
 Spencer that it has assumed its largest proportions 
 and sought to embrace in its law all existing things. 
 The oneness of species which it here seeks is not 
 simply the oneness of a germ-cell which may con- 
 tain the seed common to the life of the plant, the 
 animal, and the man ; it is a unity which shall 
 embrace within itself not only the life of the human, 
 the animal, and the vegetable, but the life of all 
 the products of nature in every department and in 
 every variety. Such is the bold and far-reaching 
 scheme which the doctrine of evolution ultimately 
 contemplates, and to the prosecution and confirma- 
 tion of which the science of our day is devoting its 
 attention. We shall here pass by on the other 
 side the consideration of what success it may or
 
 132 Can the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 may not have as yet achieved ; we shall leave the 
 determination of that to the judgment of the spe- 
 cialists. What we wish to consider is, the effect 
 which would be produced upon theology by the 
 establishment of such a doctrine. We wish to 
 inquire whether, in the event of there being discov- 
 ered the principle of unity which is here sought 
 for, there would necessarily or logically follow any 
 diminution of man's faith in the supernatural. We 
 wish to ask calmly and dispassionately, and in the 
 absence of all party interest, whether the contem- 
 plated reduction of the varieties of nature to a 
 single species would, in the event of its being ac- 
 complished, impel the human mind to relinquish 
 that belief in the superintendence of a guiding 
 Power which in all the ages of history has been the 
 support of the life of man. 
 
 In conducting this inquiry there are two ques- 
 tions which prominently rise before us, and which 
 must be dealt with separately and consecutively. 
 We must first ask whether, in the attempt to 
 reduce all things to a principle of unity, the 
 doctrine of evolution is in any sense peculiar, 
 — whether it is really doing anything which in 
 point of fact is not done by every other doctrine. 
 Should we come on this subject to a negative 
 answer, we shall have separated the aim of the 
 evolutionist from any necessary alliance with an 
 irreligious tendency. When we have decided this
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 133 
 
 point, we must next go on to ask whether the 
 establishment of a belief in the absolute unity of 
 species would tend logically to destroy our belief 
 in the continued action of that Intelligence which 
 is held to have been the primal Force in the 
 creation of the world ; in other words, whether 
 the doctrine of evolution is in any respect less 
 susceptible of union with the doctrine of a special 
 creation, than we have found it to be suscep- 
 tible of union with the doctrine of creation in 
 general. 
 
 The first question, then, which meets us is this, 
 Is the theory of the evolutionist peculiar in at- 
 tempting to find for all things a common basis 
 of unity ? There is a popular impression that it 
 is so. It is commonly believed that the doctrine 
 of evolution, in its effort to reduce the many to the 
 one, is performing an act distinctly revolutionary. 
 There is a more widespread opinion still, that in 
 this search for a unifying principle which shall 
 reconcile the varieties of things, the evolutionist 
 of our day is engaged in a work distinctively 
 modern. The truth is, he is engaged precisely 
 in that work which from the beginning of time 
 has occupied the mind of every thoughtful man. 
 There is not an age of the world's history, there 
 is not a department of the world's intellectual life, 
 in which the problem has not been identical with 
 the problem which now exercises the scientific
 
 134 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neza ? 
 
 mind — how to find that principle which shall 
 make the many one. Go where we may in our 
 study of human thought, we shall in all times 
 and in all conditions be confronted by the same 
 intellectual question which confronts us in the 
 nineteenth century — the question whether it be 
 possible to discover a single element of original 
 life or being which may once have constituted 
 the origin of all the various forms of life and all 
 the diverse shades of being which now meet us 
 in the universe. 
 
 The aim of the most ancient philosophy — the 
 philosophy of Greece — was identical from the 
 beginning with the aim of modern science. The 
 earliest form of that philosophy is the school of 
 Ionia, and the school of Ionia is based on the 
 effort to discover an original principle from which 
 all other things have taken their birth. Thales 
 attempted to find the first principle of the uni- 
 verse in water, Anaximenes in air, Heraclitus in 
 fire, and Anaximander in what he called the in- 
 finite, or that which was without shape or bound- 
 ary. These attempts were fantastic enough ; but 
 that which concerns us here is the fact that they 
 were attempts, the fact that men in a compara- 
 tively primitive age should have busied themselves 
 with exactly the same problem which engages the 
 attention of the modern scientist, and should in 
 anticipation of the modern scientist have ventured
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 1 3 5 
 
 to entertain the idea that the many forms of nature 
 were reducible to a single substance. 
 
 As we pass from the school of Ionia to the more 
 developed forms of the Greek philosophy, we en- 
 counter systems differing widely from one another 
 in their standpoint and in their doctrine, and pre- 
 senting in many instances the aspect of direct con- 
 tradiction. But through all these varieties and 
 through all these contradictions there is one respect 
 in which they are harmonious and agreed ; they 
 each and all of them aim at the solution of the 
 same problem — the reduction of the many to the 
 one. Pythagoras comes forward and tells us that 
 the first principle of all things is number. Here, 
 we should think at the outset, is a theory which 
 would give the quietus to every effort after the 
 discovery of a unity in nature. If there is one 
 idea which more than another suggests infinite 
 variety, it is the idea of number ; it opens up to the 
 imagination such a succession of possible existences, 
 that the imagination is itself at last bewildered and 
 compelled to relinquish the task of conceiving. 
 One would have thought that the man who made 
 number the cause of all things had in the very 
 statement of his theory abandoned the search for 
 the unity of species. Nevertheless it is in the idea 
 of number that Pythagoras finds the unity of 
 species — nay, it is for the sake of finding that unity 
 that he has adopted this theory. He denies that.
 
 I },6 Can the Old Faith live xvith the Nezv ? 
 
 in point of fact, the idea of number does involve 
 variety. He maintains that, strictly speaking, 
 there is only a single numerical figure — number i. 
 He declares that all the numbers in the universe 
 are just so many multiplications of the unit ; when 
 we speak of ten thousand we really mean ten thou- 
 sand times I. The universe of Pythagoras is there- 
 fore a universe in which there is only one species, 
 — and all the seeming varieties in its species are 
 simply the re-echoings of the original note,^ the 
 multiplications of the original unity. 
 
 Then came the Eleatics, exhibiting a contrast 
 in standpoint both to the Ionian and Pythagorean 
 schools. The school of Ionia had sought the unity 
 of nature in materialism, had tried to trace every- 
 thing back to water, air, or fire. The school of 
 Pythagoras had sought the unity of nature in 
 number, had endeavoured to find the origin of 
 everything in the multiplication of the unit by 
 itself The Eleatics revolted from both positions. 
 They held that the first principle of all things was 
 spirit, or, as they called it, being. They refused to 
 believe that the forms of mere matter could ever 
 be reduced to a unity, and therefore they refused 
 to believe that the forms of mere matter had any 
 real existence at all. The only thing which had 
 real existence was mind, thought, intelligence, in- 
 
 •• Pythagoras regards the universe as the liarmony of a musical 
 rliythm.
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 137 
 
 tellectual being. Here alone in the universe was 
 to be found a principle of unity, because here alone 
 was beheld a thing which could not be divided. 
 The manifold was the unreal because it implied 
 change and fleetingness. The reality of things 
 must be sought in that which never changed and 
 never revealed manifoldness, and it could only be 
 discovered in the principle of spiritual existence. 
 The Eleatic, therefore, differed in his philosophy 
 from both the Ionic and the Pythagorean: these 
 in the main were physicists, he was an idealist. 
 But if he differed from them in his philosophy, he 
 was at one with them in his method. He, like 
 them, sought the origin of things, and, like them, he 
 sought the origin of things in the life of a single 
 species. He despaired of finding that species in 
 the water, or the air, or the fire, or the abstract 
 unit ; he despaired of finding it in anything which 
 now presents the aspect of variety. But when he 
 turned from without to within, from the fleeting 
 shadows of the visible to the self-conscious perma- 
 nence of the spiritual, he recognised at last a prin- 
 ciple which could account for even the shadows 
 themselves. He recognised an element of unity 
 which could explain at once the stability of the 
 universe and its appearance of instability, just as 
 the light of the sun reveals at once the unity of the 
 solar beam and the manifold reflections which it is 
 capable of producing. The world of spirituality.
 
 138 Can the Old Faith live luith the Neiv ? 
 
 the world of intellectual being-, was to the Eleatic 
 the principle of all things ; and the unity of species 
 which he sought was the reduction of all things to 
 an element of life. 
 
 We shall mention one other philosophic system, 
 because it is one which presents a seeming contra- 
 diction to the whole principle we have been here 
 illustrating. The system to which we allude is 
 that doctrine originally advanced by Democritus 
 and afterwards elaborated by Epicurus, which 
 under all its forms may be comprehended in the 
 general name of Atomism. It differed from every 
 preceding system in seeking the origin of things 
 not in the one but in the many. Instead of declar- 
 ing that the first principle was a single quantity, 
 such as water, or air, or fire, or the germ of intelli- 
 gence, it held that things originally sprang from 
 an infinite multitude of first principles, each of 
 which was called an atom. It would seem here as 
 if the search for the unity of species were not only 
 deserted but condemned ; as if the new system of 
 philosophy had discovered the effort of its prede- 
 cessors to have been grounded on a mistake, and 
 had hastened to rectify their error by the adoption 
 of a diametrically opposite view. It would seem 
 as if atomism had been mainly influenced by a 
 recoil from that principle of evolution whose aim is 
 to merge the many in the one, and had endeavoured 
 to compensate for the past by instituting a contrary
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 1 39 
 
 problem — the attempt to merge the many in the 
 infinitely multiplied. So it seems ; but is it so? Is 
 this new creed of atomism, indeed, a revolt from the 
 old creeds of Thales and Pythagoras and Zeno ? 
 Is the system of Democritus and Epicurus in reality 
 a recoil from that principle of evolution which had 
 dominated the search of the Ionic and Eleatic 
 schools ? We maintain that it is not. We say, on 
 the contrary, that the system of the atomists, so far 
 from being a denial of the unity of species, is itself 
 only another attempt to discover that unity by a 
 new method. It is true that in this Epicurean 
 doctrine the many and not the one are made the 
 origin of the visible universe. It is true that what 
 by former schools was assigned to a single agency 
 is here assigned to an infinite number of agencies, 
 and the place which heretofore was occupied by 
 water, air, fire, or spirit, is now filled by myriads of 
 minute atoms. But Democritus and his successor 
 Epicurus go on to tell us something which alters 
 the whole state of the case, and gives them their 
 position again in the ranks of those who search for 
 the unity of species. They tell us that these atoms, 
 although infinite in number, are in quality indis- 
 tinguishable from one another. Here is a remark- 
 able statement— a statement which really brings 
 us back to the conclusion arrived at by the Ionic, 
 Eleatic, and Pythagorean schools. This so-called 
 infinite number of atoms is after all declared to
 
 1 40 Can the Old Faith live zuith the Nczu ? 
 
 constitute an identical existence. However infinite 
 they may be in number, they are quaHtativ^ely the 
 same; they belong to a single species, a single 
 order of being. That which makes them the 
 origin of the universe is really not their diversity, 
 but their unity ; their causative power is their 
 power to work together, and their power to work 
 together is that essential identity of their nature 
 which makes it possible for them to combine. 
 
 Philosophy, then, is harmonious on this question, 
 for these ancient systems are the representatives 
 of all systems. It may be said, however, that 
 although philosophy is at one with science in 
 seeking an ultimate unity of species, religion is 
 not. It may be said that science and philosophy, 
 however much they may be at war with one 
 another as to the nature of the ultimate species, 
 have all along been united in the belief that there 
 is an ultimate species, and that it is just this union 
 which has made them at most times the allies 
 against theology. We say, on the other hand, 
 that in whatever respect philosophy and science 
 may be at war with theology, they are at peace 
 with it in this. Theology may be at variance with 
 philosophy and science as to its method and its 
 conclusion, but it is at one with them in the aim 
 which is set before it. The scientific study of 
 religion, like the scientific study of mind and the 
 scientific study of nature, has always been an effort
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 141 
 
 to reduce the many to the one, has always been an 
 attempt to find beneath the varieties of Hfe some 
 common species of existence which originally com- 
 prehended all and from which all have ultimately 
 sprung. Let us examine this a little more in 
 detail. 
 
 There have been three great systems of what is 
 called natural religion — -Polytheism, Pantheism, 
 and Theism. Polytheism is from the side of 
 nature the starting-point, and because it is the 
 starting-point it is an exception to the scientific 
 rule. It is not a search for the one, but for the 
 many. It must be acknowledged that the poly- 
 theist does not seek the unity of species ; on the 
 contrary, his whole aim is to establish an absolute 
 diversity in the origin of things. Instead of refer- 
 ring the phenomena of nature to a common centre, 
 he begins by finding for each phenomenon a centre 
 of its own. In every aspect of the universe he sees 
 the manifestation of a distinct life. He has a god 
 of peace and a god of war, a power that presides 
 over the storm and a power that brings the calm, 
 a deity for the sunshine and a deity for the shade. 
 Not only has every order of existence its own ruler, 
 but every individual within that order. Not only 
 is there a being who presides over the grove ; there 
 is a power which directs the growth of every tree 
 in the grove, and in the more primitive times a life 
 which directs the nourishment of every leaf on the
 
 142 Can the Old Faith live zvitJi the New ? 
 
 tree. Nor are these many gods, like the many 
 atoms of Democritus, indistinguishable from one 
 another in quality; on the contrary, their characters 
 are as dissimilar as the spheres which they govern. 
 They have different passions, different motives, dif- 
 ferent dispositions, different degrees of capacity. If 
 anywhere the doctrine of evolution has met with a 
 direct denial, if anywhere the search for the unity 
 of species has been repudiated by the mind of 
 man, it has been in that system of primitive 
 religion which we call by the name Polytheism. 
 But it is for this very reason that Polytheism has 
 been unable to keep its place amongst the religions 
 of the world. In point of fact it did not keep its 
 place even amongst those who continued nominally 
 to be its votaries. It was not long before, amidst 
 the many gods, there began to be one who was 
 seen towering above the others, and to whom there 
 began to be rendered a worship which was supreme. 
 It was not long before even this greatest among 
 the gods was forced himself to acknowledge the 
 existence of a power greater than his own, in the 
 presence of that mysterious P^ate which was sup- 
 posed to determine alike the actions of divinities 
 and of mortals. Even the ordinary mind cannot 
 rest in the study of variety. It is not physical 
 science alone that has brought the search for unity; 
 it is the necessity of man's nature. That necessity 
 is illustrated by the fetich -worshipper who refers
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 143 
 
 the phenomena of nature to a piece of wood or 
 stone, as strongly as by the follower of Mr Spencer, 
 who finds their origin in a nebular fire-cloud. 
 Polytheism exploded by reason of its own law- 
 lessness. It passed away from the minds. of men 
 because it was not in harmony with human nature. 
 Human nature, whether it be scientific or unscien- 
 tific, is unable to rest in many causes ; it is con- 
 strained by a necessity of its being to reduce the 
 many to the one. Even the unscientific observa- 
 tion of nature was sufficient to vanquish Poly- 
 theism ; men began to lift their eyes to One who 
 was supreme amongst the many, and they ended 
 by fixing their gaze on One who in the heavens 
 reigned alone. 
 
 The result of this reaction towards a religious 
 unity was one or other of two creeds — Pantheism 
 or Theism. Vastly dissimilar as these are in 
 nature, they are perfectly agreed in this, that the 
 leading aim of both is the reduction of the many 
 to the one. Pantheism signifies by etymology 
 that God is all. It designs to account for the life 
 of the world simply and solely by the life of God. 
 All varieties of its being are varieties of Him, all 
 movements of its forces are pulsations of His 
 power. Pantheism, indeed, has many forms, be- 
 cause the men of this creed, like the men of most 
 other creeds, have various conceptions of what con- 
 stitutes the nature of God ; but however various be
 
 144 ^""^'^ f^^'^ Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 the forms, they are all at one in holding that the 
 life of the world is a manifestation of the Divine 
 life. Nature is but the garment of the Infinite ; 
 mind is but the wakening of the Infinite into the 
 consciousness of personal being ; history is but the 
 successive series of those steps of development by 
 which the process of Divine awakening is begun, 
 continued, and perfected. The Divine life grows 
 from the little to the great, and from the great to 
 the greatest ; it sleeps in the plant, dreams in the 
 animal, wakes in the man. The life of the plant, 
 the life of the animal, and the life of the man are 
 here, alike as in the system of evolution, but the 
 forms of a single life. Here, alike as in the system 
 of evolution, the world of life itself is no longer 
 sharply separated from that which we are wont to 
 call the world of dead matter. The vital spark 
 which animates the stars in their courses is in this 
 system identical with the vital spark which causes 
 the plant to vegetate and impels the animal to 
 grow, for all are alike the pulsations of a common 
 life which binds the universe in one — the being of 
 that Power whom men c.ill God. 
 
 Theism differs from Pantheism in refusing to 
 identify God with the world ; it holds that the 
 world, as we now see it, is an existence distinct 
 from the life of God. Nevertheless it is the 
 doctrine of Theism that the world was not always 
 distinct from the life of God. Theism holds the
 
 Evohition and Special Creation. 145 
 
 doctrine of creation, and the doctrine of creation is 
 simply the belief that the life of God is the ultimate 
 source from which in their last analysis all things 
 have flowed. Theism, therefore, is in the same 
 position as Pantheism with reference to the doc- 
 trine of unity of species. Differing from Pantheism 
 in its view of this world's present condition, it is at 
 one with that system in holding that this world's 
 present condition does not represent its ultimate 
 nature, and that to find its ultimate nature we shall 
 require to seek the cause of its variations in its 
 origination from a Divine source. Theism, the 
 flower of the religious consciousness, is thus, as 
 regards the unity of species, at one with those 
 systems of evolution which are commonly sup- 
 posed to embody the spirit of irreligion. The 
 difference between the modern doctrine of evolu- 
 tion and the prevalent doctrine of Theism does 
 not lie in the fact that the one affirms and the 
 other denies the unity of species ; they both 
 equally affirm that unity. The evolutionist says 
 that all the forms and phenomena of nature are 
 ultimately referable to the action of a primal force ; 
 the theist says that all the objects and events of 
 life are ultimately referable to the action of one 
 primal movement — the movement of that Divine 
 Spirit which brooded over the chaos of creation. 
 The difference between them lies purely in the 
 fact that the one defines what the other leaves 
 
 K
 
 146 Can the Old Faith live ivith the Nezv ? 
 
 undefined. The evolutionist refers nature to a 
 primal force, but he declares the character of that 
 force to be itself inscrutable ; the theist in the Book 
 of Genesis refers nature to a primal movement, but 
 he declares the source of that movement to be an 
 intelligent Will. 
 
 With this difference, however, we have at present 
 nothing to do. We are here engaged in answering 
 a special question — whether the modern doctrine 
 of evolution occupies a unique position in seeking 
 to reduce the varieties of nature to a single species? 
 We are now prepared to give an answer to that 
 question. We have found that, so far from oc- 
 cupying a unique position in this respect, the 
 modern doctrine of evolution w^ould be an ex- 
 ception to the rule if it held any other theory 
 than the ultimate unity of species. We have 
 found that every branch of study has for its aim 
 the achievement of precisely the same result — 
 the reduction of the many to the one. We have 
 found that religion itself, which is commonly re- 
 garded as in this respect the special antagonist 
 of the doctrine of evolution, is engaged in the 
 pursuit of the self-same inquiry — the search for a 
 common law which shall bind the seeming frag- 
 ments of creation into the unity of dependence 
 on a source higher than themselves. Is it, there- 
 fore, a prevalent misconception when it is alleged 
 that tiie doctrine of evolution, in proposing to re-
 
 Evohition and Special Creation. \j\y 
 
 duce the many to the one, has promulgated a new 
 or revolutionary thought ? Its thought is neither 
 new nor revolutionary ; it is as old as the philo- 
 sophy of the school of Ionia, it is as conservative 
 as the doctrine of Christian theism. Where it 
 differs from Christian theism is not in what it 
 says, but in what it does not say. Both systems 
 go hand in hand in the belief that somewhere 
 there is a great principle of unity from which 
 all varieties have originally come. Both systems 
 go hand in hand in the effort to convert their 
 belief into a s(^ientific certainty, to demonstrate 
 by the facts of experience what has been already 
 indicated by the intuitions of the mind. They 
 only cease to go hand in hand through the com- 
 parative timidity of the evolution-system. Theism 
 believes in an underlying principle of unity, but it 
 holds that principle to be conscious, intelligent, 
 personal ; evolution believes in an underlying 
 principle of unity, but it has not yet sufificient 
 courage to assign it a nature or a name. 
 
 We now come to the second of those questions 
 which we proposed to consider in this chapter. 
 Having seen that the system of evolution is not 
 singular in its search for a unity of species, we 
 have next to ask, What effect on the old faith of 
 humanity would be produced by the discovery of 
 such a unity? Let us suppose that the evolu- 
 tionist had succeeded in finding between every
 
 148 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 existing species the missing link of connection, 
 would such a discovery force us to abandon the 
 ancient faith in a special creation? Would the 
 religious man be compelled henceforth to limit 
 his devout thoughts to the belief that only the 
 initial act of the universe owed its being to a 
 higher Power ? would he henceforth be debarred 
 from the idea that this Power was specially mani- 
 fested in all the varieties of nature and in all the 
 vicissitudes of life ? The man who believes in the 
 difference of species has no difficulty in believing 
 in a special exercise of the Divine power. Seeing 
 in the fish, the reptile, the bird, and the mammal, 
 four distinct orders of life completely Availed in 
 and separated from one another, he has no alter- 
 native but to conclude that the origination of each 
 of these orders marked a special act on the part 
 of God. But if it should be demonstrated that 
 the fish, the reptile, the bird, and the mammal 
 are not four distinct orders of creation — if it should 
 be shown in the progress of science that there is a 
 life common to them all which constitutes them 
 really one species, and that each of them was at 
 one time evolved from that which preceded it — it 
 is the commonly received opinion that the belief 
 in a special act of God would thereby be neg- 
 atived and overthrown. It is popularly thought 
 that if the missing link could be found which 
 binds one life to another — that if the transition-
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 149 
 
 point could be discovered at which the fish passed 
 over into the reptile, the reptile into the bird, 
 and the bird into the mammal, there would no 
 longer be any room in the universe for God's 
 special creative power ; we should be forced to 
 limit our view of the Divine activity to the gen- 
 eral fact that at some moment of the distant past 
 the first germ of being was called into existence, 
 and to refer all the varieties of that existence to 
 the operation of natural causes. 
 
 Now this is the point on which we are at vari- 
 ance with the popular view. Leaving aside alto- 
 gether the question of the truth or error of the doc- 
 trine of evolution, we hold that the establishment 
 of this doctrine would not logically lead to any 
 abandonment of the old faith in God's special acts 
 of creation. We hold that a demonstration of the 
 unity of species would not necessarily militate 
 against the ancient belief that the creation of this 
 world involved a series of specific acts ; that if we 
 could trace the links by which the fish became a 
 reptile, the reptile a bird, and the bird a mammal, 
 we should not thereby have excluded God from 
 any one of these processes of transition. 
 
 Let us try to illustrate our meaning by an imag- 
 inary example.^ Here is a musical-box which has 
 been constructed to perform twelve tunes. Let us 
 
 1 We reproduce here a metaphor we employed in the American 
 ' Presbyterian Review,' October 18S4.
 
 1 50 Can tJie Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 suppose that somewhere between the beginning 
 and the end of these vibrations there were to pass 
 through existence the hfe of an intelh'gent man. 
 Let us suppose that he came into the world at tune 
 No. 2, and went out at tune No. 1 1 ; what would be 
 his verdict on the observation of this phenomenon ? 
 Two alternatives would lie before him. He might 
 either say that the one tune had grown out of the 
 other — the hypothesis of evolution ; or he might 
 hold that at the close of each tune a reconstructive 
 force was imposed from without to produce a 
 change of melody — the hypothesis of creation. Yet 
 we know that these alternatives are no alternatives. 
 We know that at one and the same moment each 
 change in the melody is both a special evolution 
 and a special creation. On one side it is a process 
 purely mechanical, growing out of physical con- 
 ditions and able to be accounted for on simply 
 material principles ; on the other side it is a work 
 essentially spiritual, elaborated by the action of 
 intelligence, and revealing in all its movements the 
 movement of a living soul ; in its last analysis it 
 is the product of life. 
 
 Now our position in the actual universe is pre- 
 cisely analogous to this. The world is to us a 
 musical-box ; in other words, it is a piece of mechan- 
 ism which we find performing certain rhythmical 
 movements. We have never seen either the be- 
 ginning or the end of these movements. We come
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 1 5 i 
 
 upon the scene of time after the universe has com- 
 pleted its first and initial melody; we shall be com- 
 pelled to quit the scene of time ere the universe 
 shall have entered upon its last. All that we be- 
 hold or can behold is an intermediate process, a 
 process which hovers somewhere between the open- 
 ing and the close, and whose link of connection 
 with either the opening or the close is incapable 
 of being discerned. Under these circumstances 
 we are thrown back upon our reflective faculties, 
 and obliged to seek from inference what we are 
 unable to learn from actual perception. Now to 
 us as to the imaginary being whom we introduced 
 between the second and the eleventh tune, there 
 are open two possible inferences from the facts be- 
 fore us. We may either hold that the different 
 vibrations of this universe grow out of one another, 
 or we may hold that each of them is a change 
 of melody produced by the influence of a higher 
 power. The former view is that commonly attrib- 
 uted to the evolutionist ; the latter is that generally 
 claimed for the creationist. But the question which 
 we ask is this— Are these any more alternatives in 
 the case of the universe than in the case of the 
 musical-box ? We have seen that in the case of 
 the musical-box they are not alternatives at all, 
 that it is not only possible but necessary to accept 
 both at the same moment ; the one tune grows out 
 of the other, but it does so simply from the fact
 
 1 5 2 Can tJic Old Faith live with the Nezu ? 
 
 that there has been a musician at work. Is tliere 
 anything in the case of the universe which should 
 prevent the same combination of elements ? is there 
 any reason why this musical-box also should not 
 at one and the same moment be the result of its 
 mechanical construction and the result of the musi- 
 cian's art ? Let us suppose that we had succeeded 
 in tracing the link which connects the man with 
 the animal, and the link which binds the animal to 
 the plant ; let us suppose even that we had suc- 
 ceeded in discovering the missing link between the 
 life of the plant and that other species of life to 
 which we popularly give the name of dead matter, 
 — would this close the question between the evolu- 
 tionist and the creationist? It would certainl}^ 
 prove that there is a connection between the melo- 
 dies performed by the musical-box of the universe, 
 but we are not aware that the creationist has ever 
 denied that fact any more than the evolutionist. 
 We have seen already that theism demands the 
 ultimate unity of all things as strongly as does any 
 theory of modern science, and this is only in other 
 words to say that it demands the recognition of a 
 certain link of connection which shall bind together 
 the varieties of existence. The sole question is, 
 What is the binding link ? To find the connection 
 even between the man and what is popularly called 
 dead matter, would not be equivalent to discover- 
 ing the ultimate source of things ; for the doctrine
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 153 
 
 of evolution most strongly asserts that matter is 
 not an ultimate, but, on the contrary, is itself 
 only a phenomenon produced by an antecedent 
 cause. 
 
 According to the Book of Genesis, which may 
 be taken to represent the views of creationism, the 
 link which connects the different species of exist- 
 ence is a word or command of God : " God said, 
 Let there be light ; " " God said, Let there be a 
 firmament ;" " God said, Let the waters be gathered 
 together." Let it be observed that in the view of 
 the writer of Genesis this is really a reduction of 
 all varieties to a principle of unity. The Book of 
 Genesis contemplates as strongly as the book of 
 evolution the possibility of reducing the varied 
 phenomena of nature to a single species ; only, the 
 species to which it does reduce them is a species 
 of life. It is this which makes us recognise in the 
 Book of Genesis an advocate of the theory of 
 creationism. Here, as in the system of evolution, 
 all things are ultimately referred to a single origin ; 
 but their origin is said to be, not an unintelligent 
 law, nor a material mechanism, but a living Spirit. 
 We have no difficulty, accordingly, when we have 
 accepted this principle of unity, in admitting along 
 with it a principle of constant variety ; in other 
 words, we have no difficulty in recognising in the 
 first chapter of Genesis an illustration at once of 
 the aim contemplated by evolution and of the
 
 1 54 Can the Old Faith live zvitJi tJie New ? 
 
 power evinced by the attribute of special creation. 
 In this musical-box the melodies are at once con- 
 nected and disconnected, — they are connected in 
 point of fact, they are disconnected in point of 
 nature. The link which binds them and consti- 
 tutes their unity is the word and will of an om- 
 nipotent Being who has chosen so to do, but who, 
 had He chosen otherwise, might have left them for 
 ever disjoined ; their unity is the fact of their com- 
 mon creation, their identity of species is the for- 
 mula, " God said." 
 
 Now, at first sight, the modern doctrine of 
 evolution is the direct antithesis of this view. In 
 the Book of Genesis the varreties in the order of 
 nature are constituted by that very act of creation 
 which at the same time constitutes their unity. 
 The element common to them all is the fact that 
 God speaks ; but the actual speech of God is the 
 bringing forth of variations in the order of nature. 
 If God's work of creation were a single act, there 
 would be nothing special about it ; but when it is 
 represented as a series of acts, each one of these 
 must be regarded as a special manifestation of 
 Divine power. That in the Book of Genesis which 
 makes the acts of God special creations, is not the 
 varied character of the objects created ; it is the 
 fact that each of them is created. Let us suppose 
 that the six days' creation had been represented, 
 not as the making of different things, but as a
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 155 
 
 repeated creation of precisely the same thing six 
 times over, the six days' creation would none the 
 less be a record of six special manifestations of 
 Divine power. That which makes the speciality is 
 not the variety in the object, but the fact that the 
 object, whether it be varied from or identical with 
 its predecessor, has involved the putting forth of 
 another act of Divine will ; the formula, " God 
 said," which binds the varieties into one, is at the 
 same time the very thing which renders them 
 special creations. 
 
 To this view, as we have said, the modern doc- 
 trine of evolution seems to present a direct nega- 
 tive. Here the formula, " God said," is conspicuous 
 by its absence. There is a seeming tendency to 
 ignore all transcendental causes, all influences that 
 cannot be weighed and measured in material scales. 
 The unity to which it is sought to reduce the phe- 
 nomena of nature is to appearance a purely physical 
 unity; the links by which it is attempted to bind 
 the highest to the lowest species are the influences 
 called heredity, concomitant variation, natural selec- 
 tion, and environment. We are pointed, in the first 
 instance, to the fact that like begets like, that the 
 offspring has a tendency to repeat the qualities of 
 the parent. We are pointed, next, to the converse 
 fact that like does not beget an exact likeness. 
 We are shown how the qualities of the offspring 
 diverge, in some respects, from the qualities of the
 
 1 56 Can the Old Faith live zvith the New ? 
 
 parent, — at first in a very slight degree, but ulti- 
 mately, as generations advance, to an extent which 
 renders the latest progeny of the species widely 
 dissimilar from the earlier. We are then directed 
 to observe that the earth is undergoing from time 
 to time changes in its atmospheric conditions ; in 
 other words, that the forms of life which exist on 
 the globe are periodically encircled by new environ- 
 ments. We are called to consider that when these 
 changes of climate occur, they will find the existing 
 forms of life unequally prepared for them. This, 
 of course, follows from the fact that the existing 
 forms of life have become themselves unequal. If 
 like does not beget an exact likeness, if the latest 
 progeny of the species exhibits a marked divergence 
 from its earlier individual members, it follows that 
 there are already differences in the species which 
 must render one member much more adapted than 
 another for the climatic change. Hence it is that 
 the doctrine of evolution has called in at this point 
 the aid of a fourth and more powerful influence, to 
 which it has given the name of natural selection, or 
 the survival of the fittest. By that name it designs 
 to emphasise the truth that those members of the 
 species which outlive the change of climate are 
 precisely those that have already been most pre- 
 pared for the change by their process of divergence 
 from the original type. The earlier forms having 
 been adapted to an earlier environment, are unable
 
 Evohition and Special Creation. 157 
 
 to bear the strain of the new conditions, and accord- 
 ingly succumb and die ; the latest forms having 
 had time by the very process of heredity to mod- 
 ify their original type, are able in the first instance 
 to adapt themselves, and ultimately to assimi- 
 late themselves, to those changes which have de- 
 stroyed their predecessors, and so to become the 
 progenitors of another and an essentially different 
 race. 
 
 Such is in brief outline the doctrine which has 
 been promulgated by Mr Darwin and elaborated 
 by ]\Ir Herbert Spencer. It professes to show the 
 process by which the original unity of life has been 
 broken up into such varieties as present the ap- 
 pearance of specially created species. It exhibits 
 to us that line of evolution on which, by travelling 
 backward, we shall be able to find again the orig- 
 inal unity out of which the varieties have come. 
 It tells us that by following this line we shall be 
 liberated from the primitive and puerile errors of 
 religious speculation. We shall no longer seek to 
 interpret nature by calling in the aid of something 
 which is supernatural or unnatural ; we shall come 
 to interpret her by her own light. We shall find 
 the explanation of the manifestations and the 
 changes around us not in the intervention of 
 some celestial power which from time to time 
 breaks through the original arrangements of the 
 universe, but in the presence and action of those
 
 1 58 Call the Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 laws of movement and of life which themselves 
 constitute the original arrangement of nature, and 
 which are themselves amply adequate to account 
 for all natural operations. 
 
 Such is the goal which the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion proposes to itself — a goal which, if achieved, 
 would certainly lead to the elimination from 
 human thought of the very idea of the super- 
 natural. But now we have to point out a re- 
 markable circumstance, and it is this, that the 
 doctrine of evolution has deserted its own goal, 
 has abandoned in fact the aim which it proposed 
 in words. If we take as its representative the 
 philosophy of Mr Herbert Spencer, we shall be 
 more and more impressed with the conviction 
 that the line of demarcation between evolution- 
 ism and creationism has been obliterated by the 
 doctrine of evolution itself. Mr Spencer, like Mr 
 Darwin, starts by opposing the idea of evolution 
 to the idea of special creation, and professes to 
 trace back the varied phenomena of the universe 
 to the operation of a common element. But when 
 Mr Spencer has completed his task, he finds that 
 so far from having reached the solution of a mys- 
 tery, he has in reality only discovered the spot 
 where the mystery lies. He traces back the 
 varieties of life and nature to some primitive 
 material germ, and then he tells us that this 
 material germ is only a symbol. When he has
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 159 
 
 reached his last analysis he finds that the entire 
 process has been only an analysis of symbols. 
 These so - called forms of matter are but the 
 shadows of something which is not material — 
 something which manifests itself in movement, 
 and which, therefore, for want of a better name, 
 we must call force. Behind the manifestations 
 of things, behind the changes which the eye can 
 see and the ear can hear, behind the tremor of 
 nerves and the weaving of tissues, there exists 
 and operates perpetually a Power which is quite 
 inscrutable. It underlies all things, it constitutes 
 the being of all things, yet it is itself indis- 
 cernible. Mr Spencer calls it the Unknowable, 
 but it would be a mistake to think that by that 
 term he designs to designate a mere negation. 
 The Unknowable is with him exactly identical 
 with that which the metaphysician calls the tran- 
 scendental, or which the German idealist calls the 
 Absolute. The very confession that it is un- 
 known is really a confession that the doctrine of 
 evolution, to be adequate, must be supplemented 
 by the doctrine of a specially creative Power. 
 Why does Mr Spencer not stop short v/ith his 
 germ-cell of plant-life, or with his fire-cloud of 
 cosmical life .-' Why does he not arrest himself 
 when he has elucidated in the animal world the 
 operation of the laws called heredity and natural 
 selection, or when he has traced back in the phys-
 
 1 60 Ca?i the Old Faith live z^ith the NrdJ ? 
 
 ical world the " definite coherent heterogeneity," 
 to the "indefinite incoherent homogeneity"? It 
 is because Air Spencer is acute enough to feel and 
 candid enough to admit that none of these things 
 are principles of unity at all. He sees that the 
 most fundamental phenomena of nature are effects 
 and not causes/ — that the explanation of things 
 needs itself to be explained. Nay, he sees some- 
 thing more than that. To him all the phenomena 
 of nature are equally effects ; one thing is not more 
 mysterious than another — there is no distinction 
 between great and small. The movement of a 
 muscle is in itself not less incomprehensible than 
 the united movement of the solar s}-stem ; the 
 minutest and most commonplace act in the visible 
 creation is as incapable of explaining its own ex- 
 istence, as is the grandest process of the universe 
 conducted on the largest scale. 
 
 Under these circumstances and guided by these 
 convictions, what does Air Spencer do t He calls 
 in the aid of something transcendental — something 
 whose existence and nature he confesses to be in- 
 explicable, but which he holds to be required in 
 order to explain other things. This mysterious, 
 inscrutable, incomprehensible agency Mr Spencer 
 calls Force. He does not mean to designate the 
 force of gravity, or the force of repulsion, or the 
 force of cohesion ; these are themselves only forms, 
 
 ^ See his ' Principles of Bioloi^y, ' vol. i. p. 491.
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 1 6 1 
 
 manifestations, effects. He intends to express the 
 fact that behind every form of matter and at the 
 back of every order of movement there is a mys- 
 terious entity which is only known by what it does, 
 and only seen in what it manifests — a Force which 
 is not simply the sum of forces, but their fountain 
 and their origin. To this primal source Mr Spencer 
 has no scruple in referring the ultimate explana- 
 tion of everytJiing ; it is just because he sees all 
 things equally dependent on the transcendental 
 Power that he cannot recognise the distinction 
 between the miraculous and the natural. Mr 
 Spencer truly says that the view of the universe 
 entertained by him is a far more mysterious view 
 than that held by many forms of professed super- 
 naturalism. But let us understand distinctly to 
 what Mr Spencer's view commits him ; to nothing 
 less than the adoption of that very theory of 
 special creation which his philosophy is designed 
 to rebut. Mr Spencer's view is indeed more 
 mysterious than that of the ordinary theist, but 
 simply because it is more transcendental, — in 
 other words, because it allows less room to the 
 operation of material causes. In this philosophy 
 every act of nature without exception is equally 
 a special creation, or, which is virtually the same 
 thing, a special manifestation of something ab- 
 solute and transcendental. The ordinary theist 
 only calls for the intervention of his God at the 
 
 L
 
 1 62 Can the Old Faith live 7vith the New ? 
 
 opening of new eras or on the rise of special 
 emergencies ; the God of Mr Spencer is evoked 
 for aid every instant of every hour. The direct 
 manifestations of the God of theism are excep- 
 tional ; the direct manifestations of Mr Spencer's 
 inscrutable Power are the one rule to which there 
 are no exceptions. We ask if such a philosophy 
 as this does not give back to the creationist all 
 that it ever took away, if evolution has not here 
 restored with the right hand what it abstracted 
 with the left. It came as the opponent of super- 
 naturalism, and professed in that capacity to re- 
 duce all things to a single natural law ; but it 
 now goes on to tell us that the law which it 
 has discovered is itself only a symbol, a shadow, 
 a reflected image of something that lies behind 
 it — that the presence which lies behind it is in 
 reality the sole agent in the universe, and that 
 the nature and modes of its agency are outside 
 the limits of human experience. 
 
 And here we are brought to ask if the doctrine 
 of evolution itself has not lifted us into a line of 
 thought which may ultimately prove a line of 
 junction with its opponent theory. There are no 
 two views of the universe which have in modern 
 times been so persistently opposed to one another 
 as the doctrine of the unity and the doctrine of 
 the plurality of species. The evolutionist holds 
 that originally only one thing existed, and that
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 163 
 
 the many things are but the varieties of this 
 one ; the creationist holds that originally the 
 world existed in a state of variety, and that 
 its various forms proceeded directly from the 
 hand of God. Looking at these two theories 
 from the standpoint of human feeling, perhaps 
 the experience of most men will be identical as 
 regards both — a process of alternate attraction 
 and recoil. There is something grand in the 
 prospect of seeing all things reduced to unity, 
 and there are few who do not experience a cer- 
 tain sympathy with the aim of the evolutionist. 
 Yet when we look at the matter from the side 
 of mere feeling, it seems as if his were an im- 
 possible aim. The mind is almost tempted to re- 
 ject without examination the doctrine that plants, 
 animals, men, suns and systems, were originally 
 conglomerated in the life of a single fire -cloud, 
 and that objects which now present an aspect 
 so markedly diverse were once bound up in the 
 unity of a common germ-cell. This is a sen- 
 sation which even men of science must at some 
 time have experienced, a sensation to which Pro- 
 fessor Tyndall has himself confessed ; ^ and there- 
 fore it is not too much to say that, when measured 
 by the standard of feeling, the theory of unity of 
 species fails to satisfy. But is the theory of plur- 
 
 ^ Lecture on "The Scientific Uses of the Imagination " — 'Athen- 
 oeum,' September 24, 1870 ; page 409.
 
 164 Ca}i the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 ality any more consonant with human feehng ? It 
 seems at first sight the simplest and most natural 
 view to believe that God made objects just as they 
 are, in all their present forms and with all their 
 present varieties. But as we meditate on the 
 subject more deeply, we come to ask ourselves 
 if in this mode of conception we have not really 
 lowered our sense of the majesty of God ; if we 
 have not degraded Him from a Creator into an 
 artificer — from a Being who works out a pro- 
 cess, into a man who constructs a variety of 
 mechanisms. The most devout theists will be 
 precisely the men who will be most impressed 
 that we have, and it is precisely on this account 
 that the latest and purest forms of theism have 
 been more and more dissociating themselves from 
 the notion of mechanical workmanship. Feeling, 
 therefore, is on both sides of the question ; it re- 
 volts equally from the unqualified contemplation 
 of specific unity and from the unqualified state- 
 ment of specific variety. Yet it is impossible 
 that both of these views can be false ; there is 
 no third supposition which is either tenable or 
 conceivable : how are we to account for the re- 
 coil from each in turn ? There is only one w^ay 
 in which we can account for it ; both cannot be 
 false, but may not both be true .-* May not the 
 recoil from the exclusive contemplation of either 
 have proceeded simply from the fact that neither
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 165 
 
 has a right to be exclusiv^e ; that the one theory 
 is not the opposite of the other but the counter- 
 part and complement of the other, and that the 
 true recognition of the unity of nature is only to 
 be reached in the reconciliation of both? 
 
 Now in the system of Mr Herbert Spencer the 
 attempt at such a reconciliation seems uncon- 
 sciously to have been made. We say uncon- 
 sciously. Mr Spencer is distinctively the apostle 
 of evolution, and professedly the opponent of a 
 doctrine of special creation ; nothing is further 
 from his thoughts than the reconciliation of things 
 which he believes to be irreconcilable. None the 
 less is it a law of thought that extremes tend to 
 meet. It is the very extremeness of Mr Spencer's 
 evolutionism that has driven him against his own 
 will to the borders of creationism. He shows us 
 elaborately how the many have come out of the 
 one. He traces back the varieties of nature to 
 a common homogeneous source, and binds up the 
 human, the animal, the vegetable, the mineral, and 
 the solar, within the ultimate limits of a nebulous 
 fire-cloud ; this is certainly the most advanced, 
 seemingly the most materialistic evolution. But 
 when Mr Spencer goes on to tell us that the 
 fire-cloud is itself only the shadow of a Power 
 which is perfectly transcendental — when he pro- 
 ceeds to unfold the fact that this seemingly 
 material envelope is not material at all, but
 
 1 66 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 merely a manifestation to the senses of a Force 
 whose being is inscrutable — he transforms in a 
 moment the whole structure which he has elabor- 
 ately reared. He has been arguing throughout for 
 the production of all things by evolution ; he now 
 informs us that at the back of all things there is a 
 process quite distinct from evolution, a process which 
 we can only describe in terms of our own ignorance 
 as the successive manifestations of an incomprehen- 
 sible Power. When Mr Spencer has promulgated 
 this theory, in what light are we henceforth to 
 regard him } Has he done with the system of 
 evolution what at the outset he promised to do } 
 has he made it coextensive with the universe } 
 On the contrary, we have no hesitation in saying 
 that in the last analysis he has abandoned it 
 altogether, and abandoned it in favour of some- 
 thing very like that very doctrine of creation which 
 his philosophy is designed to refute. If the 
 nebulous fire-cloud with all which it contains be 
 itself only the shadow of a Power which is tran- 
 scendental, and if every movement of evolution, 
 by which the fire-cloud breaks into variety, is in 
 reality effected only by the movement of that 
 Power, can we any longer be said to be dealing 
 with a theory whose aim is to establish the unity of 
 species } Are we not, on the contrar)^, engaged in 
 the contemplation of a theory which does not finally 
 hold the unity of species, but has gone back, at the
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 167 
 
 last stage, to the despised and rejected doctrine of 
 a series of special creations ? If all things are the 
 manifestations of a transcendental Force, in what 
 sense can the plant be said to be one with the ani- 
 mal, or the animal one with the man ? They are 
 no doubt one in the sense that they are each and 
 all manifestations of the same transcendent Power, 
 but every theist in the world would admit such 
 a unity as that. In fact we have here in another 
 form a repetition of the old creed of the six days' 
 creation, except that the number of the days 
 is indefinitely multiplied. The first chapter of 
 Genesis united its varieties of species by the 
 formula " God said " ; the evolutionism of Mr 
 Herbert Spencer disjoins its unity of species by 
 a statement which amounts to precisely the same 
 formula — the statement that the converging forces 
 of this universe are but the repeated manifestations 
 of an inscrutable Power. 
 
 What does the creationist mean when he says 
 that the man is a different species from the animal, 
 and the animal a different species from the plant ? 
 Clearly this, that the one could never have grown 
 out of the other without the intervention of a 
 Power which transcends the limits of our present 
 knowledge. Grant to the creationist that such a 
 Power has intervened, and it will be as easy for him 
 to admit that the man has grown out of the animal, 
 as it is to hold that the man was made immediately
 
 1 68 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the Nezv ? 
 
 from the dust of the earth — as easy, that is to say, 
 so far as the principle of creationism is concerned. 
 Let a man once be persuaded that the Hfe which 
 is within him is the result of an intervention by a 
 higher Power, and it will be a matter of compar- 
 ative indifference to him through what medium 
 that Power has operated ; he will feel that he is 
 no more divorced from God by the establishment 
 of a link between him and the lower animals, than 
 by the establishment of a link between him and 
 the dust of the ground, and in each case for the 
 same reason — because both are only symbols 
 through which acts a higher Power. Yet this is 
 precisely the position of the doctrine of evolution 
 as represented by its chief apostle. Mr Spencer, 
 after linking together every order of life and 
 matter in a common chain of unity, has wound 
 up by telling us that the chain is itself only a 
 symbol, and that the real agent of the whole 
 process is a Power that transcends the limits of 
 our knowledge. To this Power, according to his 
 system, must be ultimately referred every change 
 of species and every order of development. The 
 discovery of the missing link between the man 
 and the animal would not explain the passage 
 of the animal to the man, for the real link between 
 them is not a link of mechanism, but their mutual 
 connection with a transcendental Power of which 
 each of them is but a single manifestation : is not
 
 Evolution and Special Creation. 1 69 
 
 the doctrine of a special creation here abundantly 
 restored ? 
 
 Will it be said that the doctrine of evolution is 
 not bound to follow in this respect the views of its 
 leading apostle ? Will it be contended that the 
 man of science has nothing more to do than to find 
 the visible chain that connects visible phenomena, 
 and that all ulterior conclusions belong to the 
 sphere of speculation ? Such a principle, if carried 
 out to its logical issue, would destroy the existence 
 of science itself, but let us for the moment suppose 
 it to be true. Let us limit our horizon to the 
 region comprehended by the material chain of 
 evolution embraced in the system of Mr Darwin. 
 We ask if it is possible to account for the existence 
 even of this chain on the principle of material 
 evolution alone. We have already seen that in 
 the system of Mr Darwin there are two things 
 demanded at the very beginning, as the pre- 
 requisites of a doctrine of evolution — the law of 
 heredity, and the law of concomitant variation. 
 On the one hand we saw that like begets like, that 
 the offspring bears some resemblance to its parent. 
 On the other hand we found that like does not 
 beget an exact likeness, that the offspring in some 
 respect differs from the type of its parent. These 
 two laws are essential to the very existence of a 
 Darwinian evolution. But now we would ask to 
 what extent the Darwinian evolution can explain
 
 1 70 Cmi the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 these laws themselves ? Heredity it certainly 
 can explain ; that like should beget like, is just 
 what we should expect from the existence of an 
 evolutionary principle. But how can it account 
 for the other law — the principle of concomitant 
 variation ? How can it explain the origin of the 
 first point of unlikeness which the offspring ex- 
 hibited to its parent ? That like begets like is a 
 law of evolution ; but is it a law of evolution that 
 like should beget unlike ? We are not arguing 
 against the principles of Darwinism — we do not 
 believe that the point in hand is any objection 
 to the Darwinian theory ; we merely contend 
 that it shows the Darwinian theory to require 
 the alliance and co-operation of some other theory. 
 It is easy to account for the breaking up of unity 
 into variety of species after the principle of varia- 
 tion has begun — after the offspring has begun to 
 diverge from the type of the parent. But how are 
 we to account for the first divergence .'' how are we 
 to explain the beginnings of that unlikeness which 
 by propagation and heredity ultimately results in 
 a new order of being ? This is a point which 
 Darwinism does not explain, because it lies behind 
 Darwinism. The Darwinian theory accepts as 
 a fact of nature the law of concomitant variation 
 just as it accepts as a fact of nature the law of 
 hereditary transmission, and in so doing it is per- 
 fectly scientific. But philosophy ever lies behind
 
 Evohition and Special Creation. 1 7 1 
 
 science and takes up the problem where science 
 lays it down. And philosophy sees that this law 
 of variation, while it is as much a fact of nature 
 as the law of heredity, demands the recognition 
 in nature of something which heredity alone would 
 not demand. It sees that while like may beget 
 like without calling in the aid of any transcen- 
 dental force, like cannot beget unlike without 
 supposing that such a force has intervened.^ It 
 sees that the first divergence of the offspring from 
 the parent cannot be explained by anything in 
 the life of the parent, and that therefore it becomes 
 imperative to recognise the co-operation of another 
 and a higher Power. It is a recognition of this 
 truth which has led Mr Spencer to build a phil- 
 osophy on the old Darwinian science. Darwinian 
 as he is in principle, he has perceived that one 
 of the laws which constitute the theory of Dar- 
 win is itself unaccounted for by that theory, nay, 
 that it demands the addition of a theory in some 
 sense the opposite of Darwinian. Accordingly, 
 Mr Spencer has not scrupled in the last analysis 
 to call in the aid of the inscrutable. He has not 
 hesitated to confess that the process by which 
 he has beheld nature to be evolved from unity 
 
 ^ Spencer speaks of "the power which certain units have of 
 arranging themselves into a special form." He calls this "an 
 innate tendency." — Prin. of Biol., Am. ed., vol. i. pp. 180-183. 
 See also Mivart's chapter on " Independent Similarities of Struc- 
 ture" — Genesis of Species, 2d ed., p. 82.
 
 172 Ca7i the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 into variety is a process which would be itself 
 inexplicable without the presupposition of an 
 active Power behind it — a Power whose own being 
 is shrouded in mystery, but of whose existence all 
 other beings are at once the manifestations and 
 the evidences. The system of Darwinian evo- 
 lution in the hands of its own votaries, and on 
 the ground of its own conclusions, has been led 
 to adopt a system as a supplement to itself — a 
 system which in all essential particulars is iden- 
 tical with that ancient creed which declared the 
 heavens and the earth to be the work of an 
 Almighty God.
 
 Evolution and the Divine Origin of Life. 173 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND THE DIVINE ORIGIN OF LIFE. 
 
 In our last chapter we arrived at a very definite 
 though as yet a merely general result. We found 
 that the doctrine of evolution is not necessarily 
 nor essentially opposed to the doctrine of special 
 creation, and that from different points of view 
 there may coexist in the same mind at the same 
 ,time a belief in the unity and a conviction of the 
 diversity of species. We now proceed from the 
 exhibition of the general principle to the unfolding 
 of its special applications. We have seen that a 
 system of evolution may admit an act of special 
 creation ; we now go on to inquire what are the 
 phenomena of this universe which have always 
 seemed to demand such an act, and whether in 
 their case the old demand can still be satisfied 
 without waiving the claims of modern science. 
 
 We naturally turn, at the outset, to that mystery 
 of mysteries — the origin of life. And the question 
 which first suggests itself is, Have we any scientific
 
 174 Can the Old Faith live ivith the Neiv ? 
 
 data to start from ? In a work whose aim is scien- 
 tific, our course will certainly be surer if we can 
 base the result of our investigations on a dictum 
 of modern science rather than on a doctrine of 
 ancient revelation. Now it so happens that the 
 science of our nineteenth century has in relation to 
 the origin of life given us such a dictum to start 
 with. With ever-increasing emphasis and with 
 ever-accumulating evidence it has again and again 
 asserted the doctrine that in all the records of 
 human experience life has only come from life ; 
 that within the memory of man and within the 
 limit of historic annals there has not yet been 
 discovered an instance in which any living form 
 has proceeded from a form not living. It is 
 worthy of observation that the clear affirmation 
 this truth belongs distinctively to the science of 
 our century ; in the eighteenth century theories 
 of a different nature were prevalent and popular. 
 It has been reserved for an age supposed to 
 be specially materialistic to give decided scien- 
 tific expression to the existence of a natural law 
 whereby life cannot come from death. 
 
 In illustration of this position we shall quote the 
 words of one whose right to speak on such a sub- 
 ject will not be questioned. Sir William Thomson 
 says : " A very ancient way of thinking, to which 
 many naturalists still hold fast, admits that by 
 means of certain meteorological conditions, differ-
 
 Evolution and the Divine Origin of Life. 175 
 
 ent from the present, inanimate matter may have 
 crystalhsed or fermented in such a manner as to 
 produce living germs, or organic cells, or proto- 
 plasms. But science affords us a number of in- 
 ductive proofs against this hypothesis of spontajie- 
 oiis generation, as you have already heard from my 
 predecessor in this chair. A minute examination 
 has not, up to this time, discovered any power 
 capable of originating life, but life itself. Inani- 
 mate matter cannot become living except under 
 the influence of matter already living. This is a 
 fact in science which seems to me as well ascer- 
 tained as the law of gravitation. . . . And 
 I am ready to accept as an article of faith in 
 science, valid for all time and in all space, That 
 Life is produced by Life, and only by life." ^ 
 
 The predecessor to whom Sir William Thomson 
 alludes is Professor Huxley, whose Presidential 
 Address to the British Association ^ was devoted to 
 the proof that no evidence has yet been discovered 
 of life having been produced from non-living mat- 
 ter. Professor Huxley therefore holds that the 
 production of life by life is now the law of nature. 
 He goes on to tell us, however, that in his opinion 
 there was at one time a different law of nature. 
 He says that although we never now see life pro- 
 duced by that which has no life, he believes, by what 
 
 ^ Address to the British Association at Edinburgh, 187 1. 
 - Reported in London Athenceum, September 17, 1870.
 
 I "j^ Can the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 he calls an act of philosophic faith, that it once was 
 so. Of course no one can hinder Professor Huxley 
 from cherishing such a belief; we have simply to 
 point out that in doing so he is departing from the 
 principle of science to the faith in miracle. He is 
 admitting that what is now a law of nature, and a 
 law which according to Sir William Thomson is as 
 firmly established as that of gravitation, existed 
 originally as the violation of another, an earlier 
 and an opposite law. If Professor Huxley could 
 transform his philosophic faith into a scientific 
 certainty, he would thereby destroy at a stroke the 
 whole fabric of evolution which he has so patiently 
 reared, and would break that chain of continuity 
 which he loves to find in all things. Meantime we 
 are not concerned with his faith but with his science, 
 and his science is confessedly on the side of Sir 
 William Thomson. He admits that the course of 
 nature as we now have it, is a course in which the 
 living can only spring from the living ; and he is 
 therefore an enemy to the doctrine that spontane- 
 ous generation exists as a fact of experience. 
 
 We may take it, then, as one of the most sure 
 positions of modern science, that, in the system of 
 nature as now constituted, life can only proceed 
 from life. But let us understand distinctly what is 
 involved in this position ; it means nothing less 
 than this, that life is eternal. If no life could ever 
 exist except as the product of a life which existed
 
 Evohition and the Divine Origin of Life. 177 
 
 before it, there follows the inevitable conclusion 
 that life never began to be ; that in point of fact it 
 has already proved the immortality of its nature 
 by a duration from infinite ages. In endeavouring 
 to realise this thought there are two courses open 
 to us. We may either say that there has been an 
 eternal series of children and fathers through which 
 life has propagated itself from the depths of the 
 infinite past, or we may stop short in the recogni- 
 tion of one great central Life, which has been the 
 primal parent of all other lives, and which itself has 
 had no beginning. The former, if held exclusive- 
 ly, would be an atheistic position ; the latter would 
 be the affirmation of theism. But what we wish 
 at present to point out is the fact that, whichever 
 of these views we adopt, we are landed in the 
 same conclusion as to life's essential immortality. 
 Whether we think of it as having been propagated 
 through an endless series of ancestors, or whether 
 we conceive it as having been originally centred 
 in the being of a divine intelligence whose goings 
 forth have been of old for ever, we are led in either 
 case to the same result so far as the present ques- 
 tion is concerned — the recognition of an essence 
 whose existence has been everlasting, whose na- 
 ture has been immortal, whose beginning has 
 been nowhere. 
 
 We have said that there are open to us these 
 two modes of conceiving the eternity of life. We 
 
 M
 
 178 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the Neiv ? 
 
 shall speedily find, however, that one of them will 
 require to be relinquished. At first sight the al- 
 ternatives might seem to be equally plausible. It 
 might appear to be just as easy to hold that life 
 has been eternally propagated from parent to off- 
 spring, as to believe that there exists a great primal 
 Life, which is itself without father or mother or 
 descent. The alternatives are no doubt equally 
 mysterious. In truth, however, modern science 
 soon compels us to acknowledge that, leaving mys- 
 tery out of the question, the first of them must be 
 given up as untenable. If life can only spring 
 from life, it is indeed certain that vitality can have 
 no beginning, but it is not less certain that in this 
 world it had a beginning. The further back we 
 go, w^e find the forms of life more simple and the 
 quantity of life more limited, clearly showing that 
 this earth of ours does not possess a boundless 
 supply of the vital element. And even if we could 
 adopt the theory of Sir William Thomson, which 
 supposes that originally the vital spark was carried 
 to our world in a meteor, we should thereby only 
 postpone, and not avoid, the necessity to arrest the 
 movement of the infinite regress. For as Professor 
 Huxley has truly pointed out, no form of life as 
 we know it could possibly have existed during the 
 gaseous period. It is beyond all question that 
 there existed a time in which physical vitality was 
 impossible ; and therefore it is beyond all question
 
 Evolution and the Divine Origin of Life. 179 
 
 that, so far as the visible universe is concerned, 
 there must have existed a time in which hfe began 
 to be. 
 
 There are accordingly two conclusions to which 
 we are constrained to come. On the one hand we 
 find that life has been eternal ; on the other hand 
 we perceive that the physical forms of life have not 
 been eternal, but had a definite beginning in time. 
 Each of these conclusions inevitably results from 
 our acceptance of the positions of modern science, 
 and in order to deny either of them we should re- 
 quire to deny these positions. Modern science 
 tells us that the law of the physical world in which 
 we live is the law of biogenesis — in other words, the 
 principle that life can only spring from life ; unless 
 we deny that this law has itself been eternal, we 
 shall be forced on the strength of it to admit the 
 eternity of life. Modern science tells us, on the 
 other hand, that the physical forms of life as we 
 know them have been developed from the small to 
 the great and from the great to the greatest, clearly 
 pointing to the fact that they had a beginning in 
 time. Unless we deny the accuracy of these obser- 
 vations, we shall be equally forced to admit that the 
 forms of life as we know them have not been eternal. 
 
 It is clear, then, that at one time the eternal life 
 must have been brought into such contact with the 
 physical forms of this universe as to produce a 
 physical or temporal life ; the phenomena of physi-
 
 1 80 Ca7i the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 cal vitality must have had their beginning in the 
 impartation to material forms of a portion of that 
 central Life which had no beginning. This is the 
 only conclusion which is warranted by the facts of 
 experience, and the only conclusion which will 
 harmonise the seemingly contradictory aspects of 
 nature ; it is a conclusion also which, making allow- 
 ance for differences in expression, will be as accept- 
 able to the man of advanced science as to the 
 votary of the ancient faith, for it lies at the very 
 basis of Mr Spencer's own position. But now let 
 us ask what appearance to the eye of a spectator 
 would be produced by witnessing such an act as 
 we have supposed. If the central Life of the uni- 
 verse should at a certain moment of time impart 
 a portion of its being to one of the physical forms 
 of nature, and if the eye of a spectator could be 
 imagined to have witnessed the creative ceremony, 
 what would he see ? he would see only the appear- 
 ance of a spontaneous generation. The central Life 
 of the universe could not in itself be visible to him ; 
 he could only trace its presence by its effect, and 
 in the present instance its effect would be limited 
 to the impartation of life and movement to a form 
 which hitherto had neither lived nor moved. We 
 often think that we should have been highly privi- 
 leged had we been permitted to witness the miracle 
 of the creation of life ; in truth the witnessing of 
 that miracle would by no means have absolved us
 
 Evolution and the Divine Origin of Life. i8i 
 
 from the necessity of walking by simple faith. We 
 should have seen nothing but the stirring of move- 
 ment where once all was still, and the wakening of 
 energy where once all was dead. It is true we 
 might have reasonably inferred that the movement 
 had been produced by a mover, and that the life 
 had sprung from a life, but that inference would 
 in the main have been an act of faith. There would 
 have been less reason for it then than there is now. 
 At that early time we should not have had any 
 data for affirming that it was not the nature of life 
 to spring up spontaneously ; it has been reserved 
 for modern science, by the result of those experi- 
 ments which have denied this power to nature, to 
 convert the act of simple faith into an assured 
 affirmation of reason. 
 
 We pass now to a second question, which is 
 directly suggested by the foregoing one. If the 
 forms of physical life have owed their origin to the 
 contact with a central and eternal Life, to what 
 have they owed their propagation and continuance .'' 
 Admitting that physical life had its beginning in a 
 Divine origin, has it been able, when once origin- 
 ated, to propagate itself without any further refer- 
 ence to the source from which it sprang ; in other 
 words, is it only for the earliest vital form that we 
 need to evoke the aid of a higher vital Power .■' 
 There are popularly distinguished three forms of 
 vitality. We may describe them respectively as
 
 1 82 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 life unconscious, life conscious, and life cognisant of 
 its own consciousness ; the first is the plant, the 
 second is the animal, and the third is the man. 
 How are we to conceive these as related to one 
 another ? Are we to think of the life of the plant 
 as constituting the entire germ of the other two; 
 in other words, are we to view the animal and the 
 man as simply a higher manifestation of the vege- 
 table germ-cell? Or are we, on the other hand, to 
 claim for each of the three an altogether indepen- 
 dent being ? Are we to deny that there is any 
 community of life between the plant and the animal 
 or between the animal and the man, and to assert 
 that each of them owes its existence solely and 
 entirely to a disconnected fiat of Almighty Will? 
 These are the two alternatives which in our day 
 are constantly placed before us, and the advocates 
 of each hypothesis call upon us with equal con- 
 fidence to make our choice between them. The 
 choice of either seems indeed equally impossible 
 and equally repugnant to the analogy of human 
 experience. The moment we have elected to fol- 
 low one alternative in preference to the other, we 
 appear to have made a transition from Scylla into 
 Charybdis. The one hypothesis is the effort to 
 find a world without God, the other is the attempt 
 to find God without a world. 
 
 So repugnant in itself is each of these positions, 
 that one naturally comes to ask if they are really
 
 Evolution and the Divine Origin of Life. 183 
 
 the only available alternatives ; if there may not be, 
 after all, a more excellent and an intermediate way 
 embodying the advantages of both, and avoiding 
 the repulsiveness of either. These two views are 
 indeed extremes. The one has been called the 
 doctrine of evolution, and the other the doctrine of 
 creation ; but it would in truth be more correct to 
 say that the one is a system of ^z^olution, and the 
 other a system of rtvolution. Evolution is always 
 opposed to revolution, because its very nature in- 
 volves the denial of a breach of continuity ; but it 
 does not thereby follow that it is opposed to crea- 
 tion. We propose to show that, in point of fact, 
 there is a middle way between the hypothesis of a 
 world that can develop itself without God, and the 
 hypothesis of a God who disregards the laws of the 
 world. We propose to show that, by the testimony 
 alike of the old faith and of the new, there is a 
 possibility of reconciling the doctrine of natural 
 development with that other and higher doctrine 
 which teaches the necessity for the contact of a 
 Divine Life. 
 
 We begin with the testimony of the new faith — 
 the faith professed by modern science. And in the 
 first instance it is clear that modern science could 
 not recognise for a moment the possibility of that 
 hypothesis which denies the existence of natural 
 development. It could never admit the doctrine 
 that the objects of this universe are disconnected
 
 184 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 objects — that there is no Hnk of union between 
 them, and no binding force which joins them in 
 one common order. Modern science, on the con- 
 trar}^ distinctly holds, and holds with ever-increas- 
 ing emphasis, that there is a chain of connection 
 between all the objects of the universe without 
 exception. It recognises the fact, that however 
 wide is the difference between the plant and the 
 animal, the animal and the man, there is yet some- 
 thing in the highest man which he holds in com- 
 mon with the lowliest plant, and that to this extent, 
 therefore, the life of the highest man is connected 
 with the life of the lowliest plant. Modern science, 
 then, prefers evolution to revolution. But does it 
 follow that it prefers evolution to creation .'' Refus- 
 ing as it does to accept a God without nature, is it 
 willing to recognise nature without God 1 In order 
 to give this question the most impartial answer 
 possible, we shall take as the type of the modern 
 scientific spirit the philosophy of its most advanced 
 representative, Mr Herbert Spencer. None insists 
 more strongly than Mr Spencer on the organic 
 connection of the universe, on the fact that all forms 
 of life are somewhere knit together. But what, 
 according to him, is the bond that unites them .-• 
 We call attention to the fact that in the view of 
 Mr Spencer there is not one bond but two — a 
 lower and a higher. On the one hand he perceives 
 that earthly objects are connected by earthly con-
 
 Evolution and the Divine Origin of Life. 185 
 
 ditions, that each is in some sense the cause of the 
 other, and that by the mutual action and reaction 
 of all the parts the life of each part is regulated 
 and modified. But on the other hand Mr Spencer 
 feels that earthly conditions will not suffice to 
 explain the existence of a single vital form. He 
 feels that the phenomena which seem to link one 
 species to another are themselves only the symbols 
 of a great reality which lies behind them, and that 
 the real and ultimate link of connection is to be 
 sought in the continual presence and the constant 
 persistence of a mighty central force which, itself 
 incomprehensible, comprehends all. Now, to what 
 does this statement of Mr Spencer amount as 
 regards the origin of species .'' Simply to this, that 
 no single variety of life can exist except by the 
 intervention, or, if the phrase be preferred, through 
 the contact, of another and a higher Life. The 
 life of the plant, the life of the animal, and the life 
 of the man, are with him, indeed, simply the various 
 forms of one form of existence ; but that form of 
 existence of which they constitute the varieties is 
 itself a Power perfectly transcendental and utterly 
 inscrutable — as transcendental as the ultimate prin- 
 ciple of the metaphysician, as inscrutable as the 
 Life which the theist designates God. Of this 
 central Life every physical life and every physical 
 species of life is but the diverse manifestation, and 
 none would more readily admit than Mr Spencer
 
 1 86 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezu ? 
 
 that the manifestations are at once diverse and 
 progressive. The most abstruse science as fully as 
 the most practical experience acknowledges that 
 the plant is lower than the animal, and that the 
 animal is inferior to the man ; and Mr Spencer con- 
 fesses that the secret of this evolutionary progress 
 lies in the presence and in the action of that in- 
 scrutable Force which stands to him in the place 
 of God. 
 
 Such is the testimony of the new faith — the faith 
 of modern science. Let us next consider what is 
 the testimony of that old faith which has found its 
 symbol and its representative in the opening chap- 
 ter of the Book of Genesis. The first chapter of 
 Genesis describes the creation of life progressively; 
 it represents the order of existence as beginning 
 with the plant, proceeding to the animal, and cul- 
 minating with the man. If we take the view of 
 Hugh Miller, that the writer intended to describe 
 only those phenomena of creation which were 
 ideally visible, and that he therefore left unre- 
 corded that earlier creation which had already 
 taken place in the marine depths, we shall find 
 that the order of Genesis is also the order of 
 Geology. We have indeed sometimes wondered 
 if even that earlier marine creation is not obliquely 
 glanced at in the remarkable statement that the 
 Spirit or breath of God moved upon the face of 
 the waters. Tiie breathine: of God is a Hebrew
 
 Evolution and the Divine Origin of Life. 187 
 
 symbol for the impartation of life ; and so far as 
 grammar is concerned, the natural reading of the 
 passage would be, that one of the earliest manifes- 
 tations of the Divine Force was the production of 
 life in the depths of the ocean. If this view could 
 be accepted, it would remove the only alleged 
 discrepancy as to a matter of fact between the 
 order of Genesis and the order of Geology, and 
 would remove it without limiting the scope of that 
 purpose v\d'iich the writer of Genesis had in mind. 
 This, however, is not the question which we have 
 now before us. We are not here considering the 
 order but the method of creation. We want to 
 know not so much whether the plant preceded 
 the animal, or the animal the plant, as whether the 
 animal and the plant have, according to the Book 
 of Genesis, proceeded from the same source, or 
 from different sources ; whether the life of the one 
 has sprung from the life of the other by an unaid- 
 ed physical generation, or whether the procession 
 from the one life to the other has involved and 
 demanded the contact of a higher Life. 
 
 In speaking of the system of Mr Spencer, we 
 found that he really recognised two sources of 
 the continuity of species — a binding influence 
 from below, and a binding influence from above or 
 from the region of transcendentalism. Now, if 
 we examine the account of the first chapter of 
 Genesis, we shall find that it offers precisely the
 
 r88 Can the Old Faith live with the Neiu ? 
 
 same testimony. Let us begin with its description 
 of plant- life. In verse ii we read — "And God 
 said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb 
 yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after 
 his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth : 
 and it was so." The first thing which strikes us 
 here is an illustration of the remark made above, 
 that the earliest manifestation of life would have 
 presented to a spectator the appearance of a spon- 
 taneous generation. Plant-life is here brought into 
 existence through the medium of natural causes 
 which were in existence before it ; and so great is 
 the honour assigned to these causes, that physical 
 nature is described as the immediate agent in the 
 production of life, " Let the earth bring forth." 
 Here, then, according to the writer of Genesis, is 
 a physical basis of life, a material agency which 
 existed before its coming and prepared the con- 
 ditions necessary for its reception. The question 
 now occurs whether, in the view of the writer of 
 Genesis, the physical basis which conditions the life 
 of the plant conditions also the life of the animal 
 and of the man. A moment's examination must 
 lead us to an affirmative answer. We read in verse 
 20 — "And God said. Let the waters bring forth 
 abundantly the moving creature that hath life ; " 
 in verse 24 — " And God said, Let the earth bring 
 forth the living creature after his kind." The 
 point to be observed here is, that in the case of
 
 Evohition and the Divine Origin of Life. 189 
 
 marine animals and terrestrial animals the same 
 basis of physical nature which constituted the 
 agency in the production of plant-life was again the 
 immediately operative principle. Here again, as 
 in the case of the plant, natural causes are assigned 
 the honour of being the agents of creation, and the 
 production of marine and terrestrial life is allowed 
 to present the appearance of a spontaneous gener- 
 ation, " Let the waters bring forth," " Let the earth 
 bring forth." 
 
 If we turn now to the account given of the crea- 
 tion of man, we shall be struck by the fact of that 
 extreme prominence which is assigned to the 
 physical medium, which was the condition of his 
 existence. In Genesis ii. 7 we read — "And 
 the Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
 ground." The remarkable feature in this state- 
 ment is the fact that a priority in time is given to 
 the physical basis of man's constitution. What is 
 this physical basis as exhibited by the Book of 
 Genesis t It is structurally identical ^ with that 
 physical basis which, according to the same Book, 
 had conditioned the lives of all preceding exis- 
 tences. The same earth which had brought forth 
 the plant, the same earth which had brought forth 
 the animal, is now commissioned to bring forth the 
 man. The man is declared on the lower side of 
 
 1 We mean, of course, the identity of protoplastic elements, not of 
 their proportions.
 
 1 90 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 his nature to have sprung from a common origin 
 with the beast of the field and the fowl of the air, 
 and therefore the writer of Genesis is to this extent 
 in anticipative harmony with the philosophy of Mr 
 Herbert Spencer. Here, as in the philosophy of 
 Mr Spencer, there is an unbroken chain of earthly 
 conditions encircling alike the life of the highest 
 and the being of the lowliest existence, and the life 
 of the highest is compelled to trace one side of its 
 origin to that identical, material agency which has 
 constituted the being of the lowliest and the most 
 primitive germ. 
 
 So much, then, for the lower side of the problem. 
 Let us turn now to the higher. The Book of 
 Genesis, as we have seen, recognises the fact that 
 the plant, the animal, and the man are united by 
 a common earthly chain ; in other words, it recog- 
 nises by anticipation those material links of con- 
 nection which occupy so conspicuous a place in 
 the philosophy of Mr Herbert Spencer. We have 
 seen, however, that this is only one-half of that 
 bond of unity which Mr Spencer himself admits. 
 Even in his seemingly materialistic system there is 
 another and an upper chain connecting the orders 
 of life, as it were, from above. The real agent in 
 the process of evolution is with him a form of 
 transcendental life which he calls by the name 
 of Force, but whose nature he confesses to be 
 inscrutable. It is to the action of this inscrutable
 
 Evolution and the Divine Origin of Life. 191 
 
 Power that he refers in the last analysis all the 
 changes of species and all the transmutations of 
 environment which are exhibited by this universe. 
 Mr Spencer is therefore more than a Darwinian ; 
 he is a Darwinian plus a transcendentalist. He 
 goes all the length of Darwin, but he continues 
 his journey after Darwin has stopped. He reduces 
 the different species of existence within the limits 
 of a single, mechanical chain, but immediately 
 afterwards he discovers that the mechanical chain 
 is itself only the symbol of a great, incompre- 
 hensible Power, which is the ultimate and the 
 final factor in the whole process of development. 
 Now, if we turn to the record of Genesis we shall 
 find that here again, making allowance for the 
 inevitable difference of expression, the scientific 
 view has been amply anticipated. If the Book 
 of Genesis recognises the existence of a physical 
 element as one of the factors in the production 
 of life, it recognises not less strongly that the 
 causal force of this element is only a borrowed 
 or delegated power, and that the real agent even 
 in the physical process is the presence and the 
 action of the great central Life. If the plant, the 
 animal, and the man seem to spring spontaneously 
 from the soil, this is, after all, only an appearance. 
 So far from being spontaneous agents, the plant, the 
 animal, the man, and the soil itself which seems to 
 give them birth, are all themselves but the passive
 
 192 Caji the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 instruments of a great, transcendental Life, whose 
 being they are made to manifest. " Let the earth 
 bring forth grass," is not an ultimate statement, 
 not the final account of the matter ; the final 
 account of the matter is contained in the im- 
 mediately preceding words, "And God said." 
 The dust of the ground is said to constitute 
 the material out of which the form of man was 
 moulded, but even this physical side of the process 
 is immediately asserted not to have been physical. 
 "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the 
 ground ; " the prime agent in the process is even 
 here the great, central Life, and the mechanical 
 chain, the moment it has become visible, is in- 
 stantaneously superseded by the presence of a 
 Power which transcends all mechanism and dis- 
 owns all limits. 
 
 If, now, we ask what, according to the Book of 
 Genesis, constitutes the distinctive point of dif- 
 ference between man and the lower animals, the 
 answer will not be hard to find. The difference 
 between them, according to this Book, does not 
 lie in the notion that the animal has only a mate- 
 rial origin, while the man has in addition a trans- 
 cendental origin ; the Book of Genesis does not 
 admit this to be a fact. It holds that material 
 conditions were in themselves no more able to 
 produce the animal than to produce the man ; that 
 alike for the animal and for the man there was
 
 Evolution and tJic Divine Origin of Life. 193 
 
 required the intervention of the theocratic man- 
 date, " God said." But according to the writer of 
 Genesis the man is higher than the animal, sim- 
 ply by reason of the fact that there is more of God 
 in him, that he is a higher manifestation of the 
 power of that central Life which constitutes the 
 being of all other lives. The life of the animal 
 has equally its source in God, but it does not derive 
 from that source an equal amount of vital power. 
 The pre-eminence of the man consists in this, that 
 he exemplifies more fully the majesty of that Life 
 from which he, in common with the inferior crea- 
 tures, has derived his origin. This clearly appears, 
 we think, in the very words which follow the 
 description of man's physical creation. After hav- 
 ing formed him from the dust of the earth, it is 
 significantly added that God breathed into his 
 nostrils the breath of life. We understand the 
 words to mean, that God distinguished man from 
 the orders which had preceded him by making him 
 to a certain extent partaker of something analogous 
 to His own creative power. Let it be remembered 
 that in the view of the writer of Genesis the cre- 
 ative power of God was first manifested in the 
 breathing of His life ; the Spirit or breath of God 
 moved on the face of the waters. This Divine 
 breath, therefore, is here taken as the highest 
 symbol by which to describe His creative power. 
 When it is said that God breathed into man's 
 
 N
 
 194 Can the Old Faith live zuitJi the Nezv ? 
 
 nostrils the breath of life, it is implied that God 
 gave to man the power to reproduce in a certain 
 measure His own creative energy, inspired him 
 with somewhat of that force which had fashioned 
 the elements of chaos into beauty, symmetry, and 
 order. Man came upon the scene no longer as 
 a mere spectator, but as an intelligent actor and 
 a possible fellow-worker with God. He was not 
 singular in owing his origin to the Divine Life : 
 he shared that honour with the beast of the field, 
 but he was distinguished from the beast of the field 
 in bearing the image of that Life. That image we 
 believe to have been man's possession of a creative 
 power — the fact that God breathed into him that 
 very breath ^ which originally had moved upon the 
 face of the waters. 
 
 Let us now ask, whether in this account of the 
 creation of man there be an indication of any leap 
 in the order of the universe. If it be so, then this 
 narrative of Genesis must ever stand opposed to 
 the records of the doctrine of evolution. The 
 doctrine of evolution admits of no leap in the 
 order of nature ; it allows no paroxysm, no catas- 
 trophe, no sudden or unexpected emergency, to 
 break the ordinary sequence of that great chain of 
 continuity which binds the highest to the lowest. 
 Any system of religion, or any system of philo- 
 
 ^ The Hebrew word differs from that in Genesis i. 2, Inil Hebrew 
 reverence may account for lliis.
 
 Evolution and the Divine Origin of Life. 195 
 
 sophy, which recognises or involves the presence 
 of such revolutions, is thereby placed upon a 
 footing outside the domain of the evolutionist. 
 But is the narrative of Genesis in this position ? 
 We say that it is not. We hold that this narra- 
 tive, in the account it gives of the creation of 
 man, has not introduced this climax as a leap 
 in the order of nature. In passing from the 
 animal to the man, it indeed recognises the fact 
 that nature has made a vast progress, but it 
 holds the progress to have been made not by 
 leaping but by stepping. It does not admit 
 that on the spiritual side there has been any 
 real addition to the sum of the universe, for 
 the breath of life which constitutes the height 
 of the new creation is itself but an impartation 
 of that original Divine breath which moved at 
 first over the unconscious elements of chaos. 
 Neither can it be said that on the physical side 
 of man's nature the narrative of Genesis exhibits 
 a leap in the order of creation ; it assigns to him 
 a physical basis of life identical with that which 
 it assigns to the orders which had gone before 
 him. It is true that the Book of Genesis does 
 not point to a missing link which forms the 
 boundary between the animal and the man ; but 
 let us remember that the evolutionist himself has 
 hitherto failed to discover that link. All that we 
 can here say is, that whenever the evolutionist
 
 196 Can the Old Faith live zvith the A^eiu ? 
 
 shall make the discovery, he shall find that the 
 discovery is in perfect harmony with the con- 
 clusions of the old faith. No modern theist 
 would deny that there must be somewhere a 
 line of boundary between the animal and the 
 man. Nay, if we mistake not, the very ac- 
 count of man's creation in Genesis ii. 7 would 
 readily lend itself to the doctrine of a missing 
 link in the order of intelligence. The formation 
 of man from the dust of the ground, and the 
 breathing into man's nostrils of that breath of 
 life which constitutes his humanity, would seem 
 to have been not one act but two. For all the 
 writer of Genesis says to the contrary, there may 
 have intervened between these acts a long period 
 of ages, an interval as wide as that which w^e 
 imagine to have divided the transitional develop- 
 ments of the preceding creative days. There may 
 have been an intelligence in which the physical 
 dominated over the spiritual, before the advent 
 of that intelligence in which the spiritual was 
 designed to dominate over the physical. 
 
 It is on this ground that we must regard the 
 question of man's antiquity as one of no theolo- 
 gical import. That which makes man, as we 
 know him, is not his form but his spirit. If you 
 could prove the existence ten thousand years ago 
 of a human hand and of an implement wielded 
 by that hand, the proof would not in the smallest
 
 Evolution and the Divine Origin of Life. 197 
 
 degree be at variance with any doctrine of the 
 ancient faith. This human hand might belong 
 to that lower humanity which God formed from 
 the dust of the ground, and which seems to have 
 preceded the advent of what is called the living 
 soul. We shall therefore leave here out of account 
 all discussion as to man's antiquity : whatever diffi- 
 culties might be raised by such a discussion, they 
 would not be difficulties of a distinctively modern 
 type. The doctrine of man's antiquity, if it be 
 an error, is not an error distinctive of the doctrine 
 of evolution, nor in any sense peculiar to the spirit 
 of modern science. It had itself its home in 
 antiquity, in the heart of the ancient world, in 
 the creeds of Brahmanism and of Confucianism, 
 where the spirit of modern science was unknown. 
 We shall therefore pass by this question on the 
 other side. We are confining ourselves purely 
 to those points in which the old religious faith 
 comes into contact, and is thought to come into 
 collision, with the new doctrine of evolution. So 
 far as we have yet gone, we have found, indeed, 
 abundant points of contact, but not a single point 
 of collision. We have found that on the question 
 of creation, on the question of special creation, on 
 the question of the difference of species, and on the 
 question of the Divine origin of life, the new faith 
 has willingly lent itself to the old. We have now 
 reached the highest manifestation of life of which
 
 1 98 Can the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 our experience is cognisant — the being of Man. 
 We have found that science and reh'gion alike 
 have been willing to recognise at once the com- 
 munity of his nature with other natures, and the 
 superiority of his personality to other lives : we 
 now go on to see whether the old faith's traditional 
 account of his primitive condition is one that can 
 be harmonised with the spirit of the nineteenth 
 century.
 
 Evolution and the Prijnitive Man. 199 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND THE PRIMITIVE MAN. 
 
 There are two opposite tendencies which in every 
 age have divided the minds of men — the tendency 
 to glorify and the tendency to depreciate the past. 
 The former is the spirit of the popular mind ; the 
 latter is the impulse of the man of science. The 
 popular mind has in all ages reverted with longing 
 gaze to the vision of a glorified past. It has ever 
 been prone to hold " that the former days were 
 better than these," that the world as it has ad- 
 vanced in years has become more laden with 
 cares, and that the increase of its knowledge has 
 been the increase of its sorrow. It has therefore 
 seen the climax of human joy not at the end 
 but at the beginning of human history, and has 
 regarded every step in the progress from that 
 beginning as an additional distance interposed 
 between itself and the golden age. The scientific 
 spirit, on the other hand, has uniformly taken 
 another and an opposite view. If the popular
 
 200 Can the Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 mind has seen the good old times in the past, 
 the spirit of science has beheld the fruition of 
 all things in the future. To the spirit of science 
 the past is not glorious, simply because it is not 
 scientific. It looks upon all happiness as depen- 
 dent on economical conditions. The welfare of 
 man, in its view, is inseparable from the latest 
 results of civilisation — from the abbreviations of 
 time and space, from the interchange of national 
 sympathies, from the spread of commerce, from 
 the diffusion of the useful and the ornamental 
 arts of life. It will therefore consent to see no 
 paradise in the past. It entertains for the most 
 part an optimistic view of the possibilities of man 
 and of the prospects of human development, and 
 therefore it places its highest hope in the advent 
 of that future age which shall witness the accumu- 
 lated result of the ripening of intellectual power. 
 
 In no sphere have these tendencies been more 
 markedly displayed than in the respective criti- 
 cisms which science and religion have given of 
 the doctrine of a Fall. In the view of the old 
 faith, man was originally sinless. The period of 
 his existence most free from sorrow was just the 
 first age of his being. His transition from the 
 first to the second age was not a step upward 
 but a step downward, not an elevation but a 
 decline. To the new faith, on the other hand, 
 such a belief is an entire delusion. On this
 
 Evolution and the Primitive Man. 20 1 
 
 scientific view human power decreases as we 
 descend the stream of the past, and it is never 
 at so low an ebb as when we have reached the 
 source of the stream. Primitive man is man in his 
 least powerful state ; it is man without scientific 
 knowledge, without philosophic thought, without 
 reflective reason, without the strength of virtue. 
 
 It would seem at first sight as if these two 
 views were utterly irreconcilable — as if the ideal 
 of man demanded by the doctrine of evolution 
 were the diametrical opposite of that ideal pre- 
 sented by the old faith. Evolution implies by 
 its very definition that there is something which 
 requires to be perfected : if we are asked to 
 believe that man was perfect at the beginning, 
 where shall we find room for any further evolving 
 of his nature .-' But let us look deeper at the 
 doctrine of the old faith. Docs it teach that 
 man was perfect at the beginning .'* A moment's 
 reflection will convince us that it is not so. The 
 picture of primeval man as given in the Book of 
 Genesis is not the picture of a perfect being, but 
 of a perfectly innocent being. It is the picture 
 of one who is potentially virtuous and actually 
 harmless. It will be seen that such an innocence 
 is perfectly compatible with a very primitive con- 
 dition as regards the secular knowledge of this 
 world. So far is the Book of Genesis from 
 identifying the life of human innocence with a
 
 202 Can the Old Faith live zvith the New ? 
 
 life of scientific knowledge or of philosophic 
 thought, that it is not afraid to assign the birth 
 of such knowledge and of such thought to the 
 period immediately succeeding the death of human 
 innocence. That which is a fall in the moral 
 sphere is represented as a rise in the sphere of 
 intellectual evolution — "the man is become as 
 one of us, to know good and evil." It is broadly 
 declared that not from the unfallen but from the 
 fallen humanity proceeded the earliest discoveries 
 in science and in art. Tubal-cain becomes the 
 instructor of artificers in brass and iron. Jubal 
 becomes the inventor of musical instruments. 
 Enoch, the son of Cain, becomes the builder 
 of the first city. Lamech, a descendant of the 
 same degenerate race, is represented as giving 
 an impulse to the spirit of poetry.^ Any form 
 of knowledge is intellectually higher than simple 
 innocence, and the knowledge of the diff'erence 
 between good and evil is not unphilosophically 
 described as having exerted a quickening in- 
 fluence on the life of the intellectual powers. 
 Nay, those who accept the old faith need not 
 go beyond the testimony of their own Scriptures 
 in order to find the proof that the first Adam 
 was not the climax of humanity ; for St Paul 
 himself has sharply distinguished between the 
 perfection of a mere negative innocence, and the 
 
 ^ See the song of Gen. iv. 23.
 
 Evolution and the Primitive Alan. 203 
 
 perfection of a life which has triumphed through 
 suffering. "The first Adam was made a Hving 
 soul ; the second was made a quickening spirit." 
 
 With the life of the primitive man began the 
 possibility of a life of morality. In the preced- 
 ing spheres of creation, morality was impossible. 
 What rendered it impossible was the absence of 
 dualism in the life of the creature, which really 
 implied an absence of choice. The animal had no 
 struggle in its nature, because the animal had only 
 one life ; ^ there was no room in its being for con- 
 trary or divergent motives. But when man came 
 into the world, there came into the world for the 
 first time a being who had two lives within him. 
 He had an earlier and a more primitive life which 
 connected him with the beast of the field — a life 
 whose basis was the dust of the ground out of 
 which he was taken. But besides this life man 
 had a later and a higher one. Over the dust of 
 the ground there had been breathed that Divine 
 Spirit which had transformed the physical into the 
 mental, and had caused the creature of the earth 
 to become a living soul. Here, then, was a dual- 
 ism, a double consciousness, a possible struggle of 
 motives. For the first time it became a possibility 
 that a creature of the world should at one and 
 the same moment be exposed to the influence of 
 
 ^ The Divine Force only acted upon it from without ; it wns not 
 inbreathed.
 
 204 Can the Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 two alternatives, and that which was originally 
 a possibility became in the sequel an actual fact. 
 Man — the highest product of creation — ^just because 
 he had in him the elements of two worlds, was 
 made a theatre of conflict. The two worlds that 
 were within him each entered upon a struggle for 
 the possession of his soul. That lower sphere, 
 that dust of the earth which bound him to the 
 animal nature, became within his heart a con- 
 stantly downward impulse, tempting him to follow 
 the life of the animal and to concentrate his whole 
 being on the acquisition of personal gain. That 
 higher life, on the other hand, with which the 
 Divine breath had inspired him, became an impulse 
 ever tending in an opposite and upward direction, 
 prompting him to seek the fulness of his joy in 
 a source not accessible to the life of the animal — 
 in the union and communion with that primal 
 Force whose breath had constituted the true 
 dignity of his being. 
 
 The primitive innocence of man was broken by 
 the mere fact of this choice, but we cannot agree 
 with Augustine that in the view of the writer of 
 Genesis the choice was the beginning of his fall. 
 In itself it was a rise, and might have resulted in 
 the transition from innocence into conscious virtue. 
 It is quite certain, at all events, that conscious 
 virtue could not have been attainable by any other 
 method than a presentation of the alternatives of
 
 Evolution and the Priuiitivc Man. 205 
 
 good and evil. The power to choose was in itself 
 a step in the direction of evolutionary progress ; 
 it brought the highest product of creation nearer 
 to the ideal of the second Adam, to the measure 
 of the stature of the perfect man. Let us pursue, 
 however, the narrative of Genesis, in so far as it 
 relates to the subject in hand. The result of 
 man's choice was in the meantime adverse to 
 himself and detrimental to his fortunes. The 
 solicitations of the animal world obtained the 
 mastery over the solicitations of the higher and 
 spiritual world, and man fell. He fell back from 
 that stage of development which he had reached by 
 the inbreathing of the Divine Spirit, and which had 
 thereby become a natural and normal phase of 
 his being ; he took a new departure from a place 
 lower down in the scale of creation, and nearer 
 to his primitive origin in the dust of the ground. 
 We presume it will not be questioned that in 
 a system of evolution such a fall was possible. 
 In point of fact, the evolution of the universe as 
 exhibited by modern science reveals myriads of 
 such falls. Evolution is a progress over the whole 
 mass, but it is a progress which is reached not by 
 successive advances, but by movements of alternate 
 advance and regress. There are multitudes of cases 
 in which we witness the spectacle of a development 
 downwards. We see in whole races what we often 
 behold in individual human families — a law of
 
 2o6 Ctm the Old FaitJi live ivith the New ? 
 
 degeneration. There are evidences of lost fac- 
 ulties in the process of evolution. It is a mat- 
 ter of everyday experience that the mere disuse 
 of a mental or bodily power tends materially 
 to impair it, and if persisted in, will ultimately 
 destroy it. That which reveals itself as a prin- 
 ciple in the individual life of man, has revealed 
 itself as a fact in the generic life of the universe. 
 The evolution of the universe as a whole has not 
 been interrupted, nay, it may be even said to have 
 been furthered, by the struggles and the regresses 
 of those individual races which constitute its pro- 
 cess: nevertheless the fact remains that the regresses 
 have taken place, and that the law of degeneration 
 has alternated with the law of progress. 
 
 There is no scientific objection, therefore, to the 
 fact of a human fall, any more than to the fact 
 of an animal fall. The modern doctrine of evo- 
 lution is perfectly consistent with the ancient faith 
 that man has in a spiritual direction receded from 
 that stage of development which he occupied at 
 an earlier day ; has lost by perversion or by disuse, 
 or by both, the possession of a certain faculty which 
 at one time constituted a mark of his distinctive 
 cfreatness, and brought him into more immediate 
 contact with the powers of a higher life. 
 
 But the great question comes to be. What has 
 been the actual effect of this fall of man upon his 
 present condition } Does he occupy by reason of
 
 Evolution and the Primitive Man. 207 
 
 it any position in the world which he would not 
 have occupied if it had not befallen him ? It is 
 here that we stand upon the threshold of what has 
 always been regarded as one of the greatest ques- 
 tions of antagonism between theology and science. 
 It is averred by those Scriptures of the Old and 
 New Testaments which embody the conclusions of 
 the old faith, that man possesses by reason of the 
 Fall something which he would not have possessed 
 if he had not fallen — the liability to death. It is 
 averred, on the other hand, by modern science, that 
 the liability to death has no historical relation 
 whatsoever either to the Fall or to the existence of 
 man — that death existed in the world millenniums 
 before man was created— nay, that the presence of 
 death was inseparable from the very beginnings 
 of life. Here are two diverse statements ; the 
 question is, Are they contradictory statements, or 
 are they simply different points of view from which 
 the same truth may be considered? If they are 
 contradictory statements, one of them must be 
 erroneous; and in this case we should be compelled 
 to give our verdict in opposition to the old faith. 
 There can no longer be any question of the fact 
 that death was not brought into the world by man. 
 Geology has clearly revealed that, thousands of 
 years before the existence of the human species, 
 generations of living creatures came and passed 
 away, and that they passed away by that precise
 
 2o8 Can the Old Faith live zvith the New ? 
 
 method whereby human Hves now disappear — the 
 method of death. In the Hght of such a revela- 
 tion, it is confidently and pertinently asked with 
 what consistency it can any longer be affirmed that 
 death was simply the punishment of sin, and that 
 it obtained entrance into the world as a result of 
 the fall of man. 
 
 There is, however, an ulterior question which 
 here emerges into view. Does it follow, because 
 death was not a result of the Fall, that it had 
 therefore no relation to the Fall } We hold that 
 it does not follow ; and we shall endeavour to lay 
 before the reader certain considerations which 
 misht enable a man of the old faith still to 
 adhere to this article of his faith, without dis- 
 paraging the position or denying the conclusions 
 of the modern scientific doctrine. 
 
 And first of all, let us consider what is the 
 article of the old faith now under discussion. The 
 doctrine of the Bible is popularly thought to be, 
 that death results from the presence of sin. This 
 is, to say the least, a partial and a one-sided state- 
 ment. Strictly speaking, the doctrine of the Bible 
 is, that death results from the absence of Jioliness} 
 It will be seen that these two propositions do not 
 amount to the same thing ; the former involves the 
 latter, but the latter does not necessarily involve 
 
 ^ More strictly still, the absence, from the centre of being, of 
 that Divine Life which is the source of all survival.
 
 Evohition and tlie Primitive Man. 209 
 
 the former. Wherever we see the presence of sin, 
 we see to that extent the absence of holiness ; but 
 we may witness the absence of holiness where we 
 have no call to recognise the presence of sin. Both 
 the plant and the animal, for example, reveal the 
 absence of holiness — that is to say, they both reveal 
 a nature of which holiness cannot be predicated ; 
 yet it would not be correct to say that either the 
 plant or the animal reveals the presence of sin. 
 St Paul has truly said that sin is not imputed 
 where there is no law ; in other words, that there 
 can be no sin where the nature is simply instinctive 
 and uncontrolled by a higher nature. Neither the 
 life of the plant nor the life of the animal is under 
 any such control, and therefore neither the plant 
 nor the animal exhibits the presence of sin. But 
 both of them do exhibit the absence of holiness ; 
 in other words, neither of them can be said to be 
 in possession of virtue. It is one thing to be free 
 from a bad nature ; it is another, and a very dif- 
 ferent thing, to be endued with a moral nature. 
 There is a difference, as Augustine points out, 
 between the lifelessness of a stone and the lifeless- 
 ness of a corpse. The lifelessness of a stone is 
 simple negation ; it is its nature not to live. But 
 the lifelessness of a corpse is /r/vation ; it is the 
 want of something which the body ought to have 
 had, and which it has lost. The two states are 
 spiritually quite different : nevertheless the effect 
 
 o
 
 2 1 o Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 of each is precisely the same ; the privation of life 
 and the negation of life are both the absence of 
 life. The illustration seems to us thoroughly to 
 meet the question in hand. The plant and the 
 animal are in relation to holiness in a state of 
 negation ; their nature does not extend to moral 
 ideas. The life of the man, on the other hand, is 
 in relation to holiness in a state of privation : we 
 feel instinctively that he wants something which he 
 ought to have, and which it belonged to his original 
 nature to possess ; and therefore in his case we 
 count the failure to possess it as a sin. None the 
 less, the plant, the animal, and the man are in this 
 respect precisely in the same position ; they are 
 each and all of them liable to death from the 
 absence of holiness. In the two first cases the 
 absence of holiness is the result of nature ; in the 
 last it is the result of degeneration : but in each 
 its effect is the same — death. 
 
 When the apostle says, " The wages of sin is 
 death," it now becomes clear that his words need 
 no longer sound as an anachronism. They need 
 no longer be interpreted as in collision with the 
 modern scientific spirit, or with the facts which 
 that spirit has revealed. The apostle says that 
 death is the wages of sin, because he holds 
 death to be the inevitable lot of that animal 
 nature into which man sank by sin. He does not 
 consider it sin in an animal to be an animal ; none
 
 Evolution and the Primitive Man. 211 
 
 the less does he recognise the fact that the carnal 
 nature, however sinless, is not therefore virtuous — 
 that to be carnally-minded is death whether the 
 possession of that character be the result of nature 
 or the result of degeneration. Death was the 
 nature of the original creation, because the original 
 creation was material. Death was the nature of 
 the plant, because the plant was simply vegetal. 
 Death was the nature of the beast of the field, 
 because the beast of the field was merely animal. 
 In none of these cases was death a source of 
 blame. But in the view of St Paul, and in the 
 view of the writer of Genesis, the liability to 
 death became a source of blame in the man. Man 
 had in him a material nature — a vegetal nature 
 and an animal nature ; but these were subordinate 
 parts of his being, and over and above these there 
 was breathed a higher nature — a breath of the life 
 of God. That man should any longer be mere- 
 ly m.aterial, merely vegetal, merely animal, was 
 henceforth a degradation ; it was to sink into that 
 death which had been the common portion of all 
 his predecessors. Death was no degradation to 
 his predecessors, because it tvas their portion. 
 Man's double creation had given him a nature 
 additional to theirs, which, because it was a nature 
 higher than theirs, was thenceforth to be the law 
 of his actions. When he violated the higher to 
 gratify the lower law, when he preferred the dust
 
 2 1 2 Ca7i tJie Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 of the ground to the inbreathing of the Divine 
 Spirit, he sank back into a state of death ; and in 
 his case the state was inherited not merely as the 
 result of an animal nature, but as the legitimate 
 penalty of a deliberate choice of inferiority — -as 
 the wages of sin. No man, we venture to think, 
 will affirm that such a view of the question is 
 either unphilosophical or unscientific. 
 
 Let us now inquire what were the grounds 
 on which man might have hoped for exemption 
 from the common lot of his predecessors if he had 
 continued in his original condition. We are in- 
 quiring, of course, purely into the interpretation 
 of the narrative of Genesis, and are avoiding all 
 extraneous speculation. We want to see whether 
 that narrative is or is not compatible with the 
 modern theory of evolution. Now it is the dis- 
 tinct doctrine of the modern evolutionist that 
 there can be no leaps in the order of creation, 
 that no new element can intervene in the pro- 
 gress of the universe to add to the original sum 
 of universal being. The addition of such a new 
 element would be the death of the evolution prin- 
 ciple, for it would be equivalent to the introduc- 
 tion of a miracle. But if we suppose the fact that 
 into the midst of a world of death there has come 
 a being naturally gifted with immortal life — if we 
 imagine that on a region where everything has 
 hitherto been perishable there has risen the light
 
 Evolution and the Primitive Mmi. 2 1 3 
 
 of an imperishable soul, — have we not thereby 
 introduced that very new element which must 
 destroy the principle of evolution ? Can any two 
 things be more unlike one another, more at vari- 
 ance in their nature with one another, than an ob- 
 ject which is perishable and a being that is im- 
 perishable ? If at a certain stage of the world's 
 development the imperishable has been grafted on 
 the perishable, have not the stages of its normal 
 development been thereby themselves superseded 
 by a miraculous leap or paroxysm which has 
 accomplished in a moment what ages of evolution 
 could not achieve? 
 
 A deeper reflection, however, will entirely alter 
 our view of this subject. For let it be observed 
 that, according to the Book of Genesis, the intro- 
 duction of an immortal soul was not an addition 
 to the original sum of the universe.^ Whence did 
 man derive his immortality? Not from the addi- 
 tion of a new force, but from the impartation of an 
 immortal Principle already existing in the uni- 
 verse : " God breathed into his nostrils the breath 
 of life, and he became a living soul." The immor- 
 tality which constituted the higher life of man was 
 the immortality of God, and therefore, so far from 
 being new, was simply an appropriation of the 
 oldest thing in the universe. Let us remember 
 
 ^ We have already pointed out this fact in a paper read to the 
 Pan- Presbyterian Council of 1884, and printed in its Transactions.
 
 214 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 that in the view of Mr Spencer himself there is 
 in the order of nature one existence that is im- 
 mortal ; it is that primal and basal Force which 
 constitutes the being of all other things. Amidst 
 all the perishableness of individual forms, and 
 amidst all the transmutations of individual ener- 
 gies, Mr Spencer perceives that there is one Power 
 which is everywhere persistent — that is to say, im- 
 mortal. Now this is precisely the doctrine of the 
 Book of Genesis — nay, the doctrine of the whole 
 Old and New Testaments. The Bible recognises 
 only one immortality — the immortality of God. 
 No creature in the universe is in itself immortal ; 
 every creature in the universe is in itself liable to 
 death. To make a creature immortal, it must be 
 filled with the life of God ; man himself could 
 only receive immortality by having breathed into 
 his nostrils the breath of the imperishable Divine 
 Life. That is the reason why Judaism speaks so 
 little of the immortality of the soul, so much of 
 the life of God. God is Himself its immortality, 
 and it knows of no immortality outside of Him. 
 In His presence is fulness of joy, at His right 
 hand are pleasures for evermore. Therefore the 
 sole question with the Jew is, Who shall abide in 
 His tabernacle? To be driven out from the pres- 
 ence of the Lord is his symbol for annihilation ; to 
 be beset by that presence behind and before is his 
 synonym for life eternal. It may be thought that
 
 Evolution and the Prtjuitive Alan. 2 1 5 
 
 the doctrines of eschatology are at variance with 
 this view, but in reahty it is not so. Three opin- 
 ions have been entertained as to the ultimate fate 
 of humanity at large. Some hold it to be the 
 teaching of the Scriptures that all men shall be 
 saved ; in this case they shall all live by the life 
 of God. Some hold it to be the teaching of the 
 Scriptures that a portion of the human race shall 
 be annihilated and a portion perpetuated ; in this 
 case also, all who live shall live by the life of God. 
 A third class hold it to be the teaching of the Scrip- 
 tures that a part of humanity shall exist in a state 
 of blessedness and a part in a state of penalty ; 
 even in this case it must be affirmed that, in so far 
 as mere vitality is concerned, collective humanity 
 shall live by the life of God, — " As in Adam all 
 die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive." 
 
 The bearing of all this on the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion will be manifest. Here, let us say, are placed 
 side by side two forms of life — the one animal, the 
 other human. Between these forms of life there is 
 much in common ; but in one respect they are 
 contrasted : the animal is by its nature perishable, 
 the man has in him a germ of immortality. One 
 naturally asks if this transition from the mortal to 
 the immortal does not involve a leap. The answer 
 from the standpoint of Genesis is : It is a leap as 
 regards the animal, but it is not a leap in the order 
 of nature ; it has added nothing to the original sum
 
 2 1 6 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezu ? 
 
 of the universe. The immortal life which the man 
 possesses is not a new creation ; it is the imparta- 
 tion of something already in existence. The im- 
 mortality of the human soul is the immortality of 
 God. Man has in him the germ of eternal life, 
 simply because he has in him the breath of that 
 Divine Life which makes him a living soul. 
 
 It may be said that we have here sacrificed to 
 the doctrine of evolution a belief of the popular 
 mind. We may be told that in giving such an 
 interpretation to the statement of Genesis we 
 have denied the soul's natural immortality. This, 
 however, is a mistake. We do not deny the nat- 
 ural immortality of the soul by saying that its 
 immortal life is based on its union with the life of 
 God. We hold, on the contrary, that man apart 
 from God occupies an unnatural position, and that 
 he only rises to his true nature when he realises 
 his union with the Divine. We hold that immor- 
 tality was only natural to man when the breath of 
 the Divine Life had been breathed into his nostrils, 
 and that the moment this breath was withdrawn 
 immortality became unnatural to him. This is 
 clearly the representation of those Scriptures which 
 embody the old faith. Eternal life is henceforth 
 represented only as " the gift of God." As long 
 as the breath of the Divine Spirit was within the 
 spirit of man, he held immortality by right — that 
 is to say, by nature. But when the breath of the
 
 Evolution and the Primitive Man. 217 
 
 Divine Spirit passed outside of him, he could 
 thenceforth receive immortahty only as a favour 
 from without. We understand the statement of 
 Genesis to be this : Unfallen man had the seed of 
 immortality in liijusclf ; he possessed it as .a part 
 of his nature. As yet, however, he possessed it 
 only spontaneously, and, as it were, unconsciously. 
 He imbibed the breath of the Divine Spirit as the 
 plant imbibes the breath of the natural day — that 
 is to say, without realising the wealth of his pos- 
 session. In order to make him realise it, it was 
 necessary that he should choose it ; and in order 
 that he should choose it, it was necessary that his 
 innocence should be destroyed. The moment the 
 alternatives of good and evil are presented to a 
 human soul, the innocence of that soul must pass 
 away. The passing away of the innocence, how- 
 ever, may be either a spiritual elevation or a 
 spiritual degradation. There are two ways in 
 which a soul may get rid of its innocence : it 
 may rise from it, or it may fall from it. In either 
 case there will be an intellectual advancement ; 
 because the death of innocence in itself always 
 implies the advent of knowledge. Man, therefore, 
 in order that his innocence might be broken, was 
 called to choose between the alternatives of good 
 and evil — between the life of that Divine Spirit 
 which constituted the immortal seed within him, 
 and the life of that dust of the ground which
 
 2 1 8 Ca7i the Old Faith live zvith the New ? 
 
 formed the basis of his material constitution. He 
 chose the latter, and thereby he placed himself 
 outside the influence of the immortal principle. 
 His nature became like the nature of his prede- 
 cessors — a constitution liable to death. It did not 
 follow from this that he had henceforth no hope of 
 a future existence ; what did follow was, that if he 
 should receive a future existence it must come to 
 him as a gift and not as a right. The seed of 
 immortality was no longer in himself — in other 
 words, it was no longer natural to him. In accept- 
 ing the dust of the ground in preference to the 
 breath of the Divine Life, he had himself become 
 unnatural, had fallen beneath that stage of de- 
 velopment which ought to have been his normal 
 starting-point, had touched again the confines of 
 the animal world. 
 
 Let us now see at what stage we have arrived in 
 the evolution of the world. We have come to the 
 end of one period of evolution, and we have reached 
 the beginning of a new and a different period. 
 The creation of man marks the climax and the 
 close of the development of nature ; the fall of man 
 marks the beginning and the foundation of the de- 
 velopment of mind. With the creation of man the 
 evolution of physical life, so far as we have any 
 record on the subject, came to an end ; God rested. 
 We have no evidence whatever that since the open- 
 ing of the human period there has in the world of
 
 Evolution and the Pj'iniitive Man. 219 
 
 physical life been any operation of the evolution 
 principle. We are aware, indeed, that many, in 
 the absence of evidence, hold the continuance of 
 that principle as a matter of scientific faith ; but 
 what is simply a matter of scientific faith cannot 
 yet be regarded as even a scientific hypothesis. 
 Sir John Lubbock, in a recent address to the 
 British Association, stated that it was a popular 
 misconception to imagine that the evolutionist held 
 the Darwinian principle to be in operation now. 
 He was ready to admit that the species animal and 
 the species man were now distinct, and that an 
 impassable gulf stretched between them. We do 
 not quote his words, but simply his thought, and 
 that only from memory ; but the admission made 
 such an impression on us at the time, that we do 
 not think we can have mistaken his meaning. If, 
 then, an authority like Sir John Lubbock can re- 
 gard the original process of physical evolution as 
 a process which is now suspended, we may take it 
 for granted that there is not in existence a frag- 
 ment of evidence to support the belief in its con- 
 tinuance, and that the verdict of the Book of 
 Genesis remains unreversed, — " God rested on the 
 seventh day from all His work which He had made." 
 But if the principle of evolution concludes one 
 stage of its development in the creation of man, it 
 enters on a second and higher stage in his fall. 
 The fall of man may be regarded as the birth of
 
 220 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 his intellectual nature, not because it zvas 2l fall, 
 but because it was an end to his life of innocence. 
 The same intellectual birth would of course have 
 been equally produced by his rise, or, in other 
 words, by the conquest of his first temptation. 
 As it was, the one compensating feature in the fall 
 was the fact that the destruction of man's inno- 
 cence did actually introduce him into an intellec- 
 tual world — a world in which the distinctions of 
 good and evil were no longer concealed by a life 
 of spontaneity, but where the spontaneous had 
 given place to the conscious, and the conscious 
 had become the source of a deliberate choice. 
 From this stage, therefore, dates the beginning of 
 a new evolutionary development — a development 
 in which the agent is no longer material but 
 spiritual, an evolution in which the goal is no 
 longer the perfection of the structure but the 
 maturity of consciousness. Man is to begin the 
 course of his upward progress from the lowest step 
 of the mental ladder, and is to regain by suffering 
 and by struggle that height from which he has 
 fallen. He has to conquer again the ground which 
 he has lost, and to plant once more within his 
 heart the seed of immortality. His last state is 
 to be nobler than his first, inasmuch as it is to be 
 won by conquest. It is no more to be inherited 
 as a merely natural possession ; it is to be pos- 
 sessed anew by struggle, and to be made natural
 
 Evolution and the Primitive Man. 221 
 
 by personal appropriation. The first Adam was 
 perfect without suffering, and when suffering came 
 he fell ; the second Adam is to be perfect through 
 suffering, and mightiest in the hour of his tribu- 
 lation. 
 
 It is no part of the province of this work to 
 trace the different steps in the development of this 
 second and higher evolution, any more than it was 
 a part of its province to trace the development of 
 the first and lower one. In point of fact we have 
 not attempted to trace the first. We have made 
 no effort to exhibit the ascending gradations of 
 the evolution principle, or to mark those shades 
 of transition by which one phase of physical struc- 
 ture has passed into another. To do so would 
 have been to write a philosophy of evolution, than 
 which nothing is further from our present purpose. 
 In treating of the^ primitive man, we have been 
 brought for a moment on historic ground ; but this 
 has been merely incidental. The sole aim which 
 we have in view is to answer the question whether 
 the old faith can live with the new — whether the 
 fact that nature does work by evolution is inimical 
 to those doctrines which have hitherto constituted 
 the religious belief of the most civilised and ele- 
 vated of mankind. We shall therefore avoid all 
 efforts to follow the development of the mental 
 evolution, as we have avoided all attempts to trace 
 the progress of the physical one, and shall confine
 
 222 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 ourselves again purely to the question with which 
 we have here specially to do. We have now 
 arrived at a new phase of that question. We have 
 seen that in the Scriptures of the Old and New 
 Testaments there is virtually, though not formally, 
 sketched out a plan of human development — a plan 
 by which the spirit of man regains possession by 
 conquest of what originally he had held only by 
 right of birth. If the truth of that plan be con- 
 ceded, it is clear that there must have been in the 
 process the operation of a higher agent than the 
 human soul : the very existence of such a plan 
 presupposes the existence of a Divine Providence. 
 The question, therefore, which now opens before 
 us is this : Is the doctrine of evolution consistent 
 with the doctrine of Providence ? We must in- 
 quire whether that view of nature which the prin- 
 ciple of evolution implies is compatible with that 
 view of God which the spirit of religion demands ; 
 whether a universe whose parts on every side 
 are bound together by the links of an iron chain, 
 is consistent with the action and the superinten- 
 dence of a great benevolent Power whose aim 
 through all the manifestations of nature is the 
 development of the living soul. A consideration 
 (jf this subject must be reserved for the next 
 chapter.
 
 Evolution and Providence, 223 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND PROVIDENCE. 
 
 We have now arrived at that part of the subject 
 which immediately concerns us as living beings — 
 How are we to think of God as related to ourselves ? 
 It is, after all, a matter of comparatively little im- 
 portance whether the Divine Power acted immedi- 
 ately or mediately in the creation of the physical 
 world or in the generation of the first forms of life ; 
 but it is a matter of vast practical importance 
 whether we can think of this Divine Power as at 
 present active in the universe, and whether we can 
 see in His action the tendency towards the accom- 
 plishment of a definite and a benevolent plan. It is 
 on this question that one of the greatest scientific 
 difiiculties has seemed to present itself Nowhere 
 has the conception of nature introduced by evolu- 
 tion appeared more unfavourable to the old faith 
 than in its attitude towards the doctrine of a Divine 
 Providence ; and as this is a vital matter involving 
 ultimately the choice between faith and atheism, it
 
 224 Can tJie Old FaitJi live luitJi the Nezv ? 
 
 becomes incumbent on us carefully to examine 
 whether the modern doctrine of evolution is really 
 so adverse to the old view of Providence as on the 
 surface it appears to be. 
 
 Let us first endeavour to ascertain where lies 
 the supposed incompatibility between the modern 
 doctrine of evolution and the old belief in a provi- 
 dential guidance. Perhaps we shall best reach this 
 knowledge by considering in the first instance where 
 the incompatibility does not lie, as this is a point 
 on which there is a very prevalent misconception. 
 It is frequently said, for example, that the unity of 
 nature which is taught by modern science is incom- 
 patible with the continuous action of a Power that 
 transcends nature. This statement is directly con- 
 trary to the averment of science itself. We have 
 seen that, in the evolutionary system taught by Mr 
 Herbert Spencer, the main factor in the process is 
 just a Force or Power that transcends nature, and 
 that without the continued action of that Force or 
 Power there could be no possible action of any 
 other agent. With such an admission from the 
 lips of the most pronounced representative of evo- 
 lution, it would surely be the wildest folly to assert 
 that the unity of physical nature is a barrier to our 
 ancient belief in the possible co-operation of a 
 Power that transcends nature. Again, it is some- 
 times said that the establishment of the modern 
 doctrine of evolution has destroyed the possibility
 
 Evolution and Providence. 225* 
 
 of a teleology — in other words, has made it impos- 
 sible for men any longer to believe that this world 
 is presided over by a Divine purpose and plan. 
 This statement is also contrary to the fact. The 
 most advanced evolutionist in existence never has 
 affirmed, and never shall affirm, that evolution 
 is incompatible with design.^ It is not too much 
 to say that if the existence of God were visibly 
 demonstrated, and we were called upon to conjec- 
 ture beforehand with developed faculties what the 
 mode of His providential action would be, we 
 would unanimously select evolution as that method 
 the most dignified and seemingly the most worthy 
 of the Divine. It is the merest truism to affirm that 
 a power which acts continuously and according to 
 law, must always be a higher object of reverence 
 than a power which acts impulsively and without 
 regard to law. With such an instinctive convic- 
 tion in the heart of human nature, it would be 
 contrary to all reason to assert that the establish- 
 ment of the doctrine of evolution would render 
 impossible our belief in a providential plan. 
 
 The barrier which, in the view of modern 
 science, seems to exist between the doctrine of 
 evolution and the doctrine of a designing Provi- 
 dence, is of a different nature from either of these. 
 
 ^ Spencer speaks of "the naturally revealed end toward which 
 the Power manifested throughout evolution works." — Data of 
 Ethics, §62. Huxley also admits that evolution is not incompat- 
 ible with " a higher teleology." 
 
 P
 
 226 Can the Old Faith live luitJi the Neiv ? 
 
 It is not built upon a notion that there is no room 
 for the action of a First Cause amid the continuous 
 agency of so many second causes, nor does it lie 
 in any belief that the reference of natural phe- 
 nomena to a principle of evolution is in itself 
 at variance with the presence of design in the 
 universe. The difficulty lies here : The establish- 
 ment of the doctrine of evolution, while it is never 
 held to render the existence of design impossible, 
 is often supposed to render the existence of design 
 unnecessary. If the being of a God were visibly 
 demonstrated, the mode of evolution would, as we 
 have said, be the mode in which we should look 
 for His working. But it is held that the visible 
 demonstration of God's being is itself rendered 
 impossible by the doctrine of evolution, inasmuch 
 as the doctrine of evolution accounts by natural 
 law for those phenomena which formerly were sup- 
 posed to be due to supernatural agency. It does 
 not say that the fact of natural phenomena being 
 referable to natural law is sufficient in itself to prove 
 that they had no original place in the thought of a 
 designing Mind, but it is supposed to ask what need 
 there is to call in the aid of such a designing Mind 
 when everything He has designed can be equally 
 well accounted for without His design. The point 
 of conflict, therefore, between the modern doctrine 
 of evolution and the ancient belief in a designing 
 Providence, is believed to be the fact that evolution
 
 Evolution and Providence. 227 
 
 would render the existence of design unnecessary. 
 The scientist of the nineteenth century would hold 
 as strongly as Archdeacon Paley that design im- 
 plies a designer, but he would ask that in the first 
 instance the existence of design should be scien- 
 tifically demonstrated. It used to be taken for 
 granted that birds had received wings to enable 
 them to fly ; the tendency in our days is to affirm 
 that birds are able to fly from the fact that in the 
 course of evolution they have received wings. It 
 was formerly habitual to say that the eye was 
 made for the purpose of seeing ; the tendency in 
 our time is to say that because an eye happened to 
 be made, sight followed as an inevitable necessity, 
 and that as the necessity was inevitable, all idea of 
 designing choice is thereby excluded. 
 
 The first and leading question then is, Is there 
 or is there not design in the universe .' Has 
 Paley's argument become obsolete by the destruc- 
 tion of its minor premiss .'' Once establish the 
 minor premiss, and no scientist will dispute any 
 other step of the argument ; prove that there is 
 design in nature, and the conviction will become 
 universal that there has been at work a designing 
 Mind. But the doctrine of evolution seems at first 
 sight to have negatived Paley's minor premiss by 
 accounting for Paley's facts on a totally differ- 
 ent principle. Is there any possibility of getting 
 back to the theistic position of the last century, of
 
 2 28 Can the Old Faith live ivith the Nezu ? 
 
 seeing in the structure of nature the evidence of a 
 presiding thought and intelHgence ? Clearly, if the 
 question is to be solved, it must be solved by a 
 shorter road than the solution of the problem 
 whether birds fly because they have wings, or have 
 wings in order to fly. Is there a shorter road ? 
 We think there is. We believe we shall be able 
 to pass by this question on the other side, and to 
 find the solution of the problem by a more excel- 
 lent way. 
 
 Let us concede then, for the sake of argument, 
 what we do not concede in point of fact — that the 
 doctrine of evolution renders unnecessary the op- 
 eration of final causes in physical nature. There 
 still remains, however, a region of nature which is 
 not physical, or which, if the evolutionist insist in 
 regarding it as physical, must be held to be an 
 exception to the rule : we allude to those pheno- 
 mena which are comprehended under the general 
 name of life. The evolutionist admits the pheno- 
 mena of life to belong to the sphere of nature, and 
 some go so far as to refer them to the sphere of 
 physical nature. Now there can be no question 
 that if life belongs to the sphere of nature, we 
 have the evidence in nature of the existence of 
 design. No evolutionist will pretend that design 
 has not been one of the factors in the process of 
 evolution. One of the most powerful factors in 
 evolution has been that principle of natural selec-
 
 Evolution and Providence. . 229 
 
 tion which has resulted in the survival of the fittest. 
 But in a large number of instances that principle 
 has been worked out voluntarily and designedly. 
 The bird has been attracted towards a mate of 
 beautiful plumage ; and in so far its selection 
 has been not merely natural, but voluntary. The 
 weaker animal has been attracted towards a mate 
 whose strength can protect it ; and in so far its 
 selection has been the product not simply of spon- 
 taneous nature, but of deliberate design. Elimi- 
 nate design from the process of evolution, and you 
 would eliminate the world of life as now existing. 
 We cannot even tell to what extent the actions of 
 what we call instinct have been really voluntary 
 actions, but we may be quite sure that in every 
 case they have been totally distinct from the acts 
 of mechanism. The higher we ascend in the scale 
 of being, the more distinct from the acts of mechan- 
 ism do the manifestations of life become, until at 
 last, in the spirit of man, we reach a personal de- 
 monstration of the presence of design in nature. 
 For here we are brought face to face no longer 
 with an inference, but with a fact — a phenomenon 
 of our own consciousness. We find within our- 
 selves the operation of a designing principle so dis- 
 tinctly selective and voluntary that we give to it the 
 name of will. We meet in that personal experience 
 which is to us the final stage in the development 
 of nature, with a power whose distinctive feature
 
 230 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 is the conception of a puqDose, and a faculty 
 whose distinctive end is the ability to select itjj 
 own end. 
 
 Before we go a step further, however, we are 
 reminded that we must verify our position. It 
 seems strange that such a position should need 
 verification ; one would have thought that the tes- 
 timony of consciousness would have been deemed 
 final. It so happens, however, that in the view of 
 many, the fact of the freedom of will being the tes- 
 timony of a merely subjective consciousness, is the 
 very thing which renders its existence suspicious. 
 We are told that man is not really free — that he is 
 really a piece of mechanism whose every act is de- 
 pendent on the disposition of his structure. We are 
 told that at any moment of his life he could not do 
 otherwise than he actually does — that, in point of 
 fact, his present moment is determined by his past, 
 and that his latest action is the inevitable result of 
 all his preceding acts. Yet this objection evades the 
 real question at issue. What we want to account 
 for is not the existence of freedom in man — which 
 may be an open question — but the existence in man 
 of an idea of freedom, which is a fact attested by 
 consciousness ; we want to know, not why man is 
 free, but why he believes himself to be free — a fact 
 which needs all the more explanation if he be 7iot 
 free. Whence did the delusion proceed ; whence 
 did an idea emanate so contrary to the actual state
 
 Evolution and Providence. 2 3 1 
 
 of the case, on the supposition that man is a piece 
 of mechanism ? We are aware that an answer has 
 been furnished to this question. We are told that 
 man's delusion concerning the freedom of his will 
 has arisen from the fact that there are certain 
 things of whose causes he is ignorant. We are 
 reminded that wherever we do not know the cause 
 of anything, we are accustomed to consider our- 
 selves self-acting and independent, and that we 
 only come to feel our dependence when we arrive 
 at a knowledge of causes. We believe it to be 
 exactly the reverse. We believe the case to be, 
 that where men are ignorant of causes they are 
 uniformly weak-willed — in other words, incapable of 
 realising their own freedom. The Greek had a great- 
 er sense of freedom than the Brahman ; and why } 
 because the Greek had penetrated further into a 
 knowledge of natural causes, and felt on that ac- 
 count that he had more power to utilise the mate- 
 rials of nature. The Brahman knew nothing of 
 natural causes, and therefore he felt himself a slave ; 
 he crouched before the majesty of a physical na- 
 ture which he could not reduce to law, and there- 
 fore could not utilise. Man's sense of ignorance 
 will never account for his sense of freedom. His 
 sense of freedom has grown with his civilisation, 
 and is most strongly felt in the ages of his ripest 
 culture — in those ages when his knowledge of 
 nature is the most extensive and the most varied,
 
 232 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 and where his power to recognise causes is the 
 widest and the most unerring. 
 
 How, then, are we to account for this sense of 
 freedom, or, if you will, for this delusion that we 
 are free ? The question is, Are we to explain it 
 as a result of one of the factors in the evolution 
 principle ; or, are we to explain it as having had 
 its origin apart altogether from the evolution prin- 
 ciple ? Let us take the latter supposition first. 
 Shall we say that the sense of human freedom has 
 sprung up spontaneously as a result of certain 
 combinations of matter ? This is a view which has 
 actually been taken by some evolutionists ; yet we 
 have no hesitation in saying that it is a view 
 which, if accepted, would destroy the principle of 
 evolution, and it is in the interest of evolution that 
 we here reject it. If the sense of human freedom 
 has sprung up spontaneously out of something 
 which is not free, then we have in the most pro- 
 nounced form a creation out of nothing. The cre- 
 ative miracle to which such a supposition would 
 reduce us, is one in comparison with which the 
 miracle of Genesis grows pale ; for this would be 
 not only a creation out of nothing, but a creation 
 effected by nothing — a supernatural effect without 
 a supernatural cause. Under these circumstances, 
 if we would pay any respect to the principle of 
 evolution, it is incumbent on us to reject a theory 
 which, if accepted, would nullify all its conclu-
 
 Evolution and Providence. 233 
 
 sions, and cut at the very root of its possible 
 development. 
 
 But if we reject this alternative, can we accept 
 the other and remaining one ? If we say that the 
 sense of human freedom has not its origin apart 
 from evolution, can we find for that sense of free- 
 dom an origin in evolution ? Is there any factor 
 of the evolution process which would account for 
 the existence of a sense of freedom in the human 
 soul? If we adopt the philosophy of Mr Herbert 
 Spencer, we believe that there is. Let us remem- 
 ber that in the system of Mr Spencer the prime 
 factor of all is what he calls Force. Now human 
 consciousness has only one conception of force — 
 the idea of will. We do not say that will is the 
 only force in the universe, but we do say that man 
 has no conception of any other force.^ Strictly 
 speaking, we have no idea of material power in 
 any form ; power is a purely mental conception. 
 We look abroad upon the face of nature and 
 observe there certain changes ; we say that there 
 must have been some power to cause these changes. 
 The inference is perfectly just, but let us never 
 forget that it is only an inference. The ideas of 
 cause and power would never have been even 
 
 ' Spencer himself says that our notion offeree is a generalisation 
 of the sensations we have in producing changes. —Prin. of Psy. , vol. 
 ii. § 348. See also Wallace's Theory of Natural Selection, p. 36S 
 (London, 1 870) ; and Argyll's Reign of Law, fifth edition, p. 123 
 (London, 1867).
 
 234 Can the Old Faith live zvitJi the New ? 
 
 suggested by the objects of nature but for the 
 presence within us of a determinative wiU. Nature 
 reveals to us nothing but the manifestations of 
 change ; when we assign to these manifestations 
 the attributes of power and causality, we are really 
 clothing nature in the garments of our own im- 
 puted righteousness, and are beholding in the oper- 
 ations of the physical a reflection and a mirror of 
 our own human intelligence. 
 
 Here, then, in the bosom of evolution, we have a 
 factor whose presence and action would explain the 
 mystery of the sense of human freedom. Mr Herbert 
 Spencer says that the prime agent in all evolution is 
 force, and we know as a matter of experience that 
 the only force with which we are conversant is will. 
 If we put these two facts together, we shall reach 
 a probable solution of the mystery — a solution 
 compatible with the most advanced evolutionism, 
 and at the same time consistent with the doctrine 
 of the ancient faith. If we say that the primal 
 Force of the universe is itself an intelligent Will, 
 we shall thereby have explained the existence of 
 the sense of freedom within us ; we shall have 
 discovered in the process of evolution an agent 
 sufficient to account for the fact that such a pecu- 
 liar manifestation has been evolved from nature. 
 If we reject this view, we render every sphere of 
 creation incomprehensible, but no sphere so incom- 
 prehensible as the province claimed by the evolu-
 
 Evolution and Providence. 235 
 
 tionist, for we shall be confronted by the spectacle 
 of a creation out of nothing unparalleled in the 
 annals of religion — a creation which has brought the 
 sense of freedom out of the depths of slavery, and 
 has fashioned the consciousness of will out of those 
 lifeless materials whose distinctive feature is the 
 absence of volition. 
 
 Here, then, as it were by a new discovery of the 
 presence of design in nature, we have been brought 
 again to infer the presence of design in the Power 
 that transcends nature. It is no longer, indeed, 
 the old argument from design by which we have 
 reached this conclusion ; it is rather a return to that 
 cosmological argument which seeks in the effect a 
 cause adequate to produce it. It is really a regress 
 to the most ancient attempt in the world to prove 
 the personality of the Power that transcends the 
 world. " He that planted the ear, shall He not 
 hear.'' He that formed the eye, shall He not see.-'" 
 It is, indeed, no part of the present work to estab- 
 lish the scientific validity of this argument. We 
 are not here seeking to prove the truth of theism ; 
 we are simply seeking to show that the truth 
 of theism would not be affected by the establish- 
 ment of the most advanced form of evolution. It 
 is therefore enough for our present purpose to dis- 
 cover that there is nothing in the doctrine of evo- 
 lution which would militate against that belief in a 
 designing Providence which lies at the basis of all
 
 236 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 religion ; nay, that the doctrine of evolution itself 
 would be encountered by an insurmountable ob- 
 stacle, if it were not allowed to assume the possi- 
 bility of an intelligent Will as one of the factors 
 in the universal process. We shall rest satisfied, 
 therefore, with this conclusion, and shall pass on to 
 consider whether, assuming the existence of this 
 intelligent Will, we can discover any harmony of 
 sentiment as to its purpose in the teaching of 
 evolution and the teaching of religion. 
 
 Now the teaching of the old faith as to the 
 purpose of the providential Will is from the very 
 beginning clear and explicit. It moves upon a 
 settled plan. The final aim to which it tends is 
 the development of the human soul, — the raising 
 of the human soul into a species of equality with 
 the Divine life, " that we all may be one." The 
 six days of creation move towards man as their 
 climax and their justification ; if God sees each of 
 them to be very good, it is because He sees each 
 of them in the light of that seventh morning when 
 He finds His rest in communion with the human 
 spirit. It seems to us that we have a very strong 
 indication of this in the seeming discrepancy be- 
 tween the accounts of creation given in the ist and 
 2d chapters of Genesis. In the former of these 
 narratives the animals are made before man, and 
 man comes forth as the latest product of nature ; 
 in the latter it would seem as if man were made
 
 Evolution and Providence. 237 
 
 before the animals, and the animals created merely 
 with a view to his kingship, — " And out of the 
 ground the Lord God formed every beast of the 
 field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them 
 unto Adam to see what he would call them : and 
 whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that 
 was the name thereof." Discrepant as these ac- 
 counts seem to be, they are in our view perfectly 
 reconcilable with the facts of experience. There 
 is no fact of experience more attested than this, 
 that the climax or completion of an author's work 
 is the earliest object in his thought. The climax 
 of his work is the latest thing to be worked out in 
 order of time, but for that very reason it is the first 
 thing to be conceived in the mind of the author; 
 it is that which prompts him to begin his work, and 
 it is that which sustains him in the process of its 
 continuance. We believe that in the ist and 2d 
 chapters of Genesis we have an illustration of these 
 two different points of view. The creation is first 
 represented in the actual order of its procession 
 from the hand of the Divine Artist, and therefore 
 the spirit of man here appears as its finishing touch. 
 But the mind of the writer of Genesis reverts to 
 the fact that what was the finishing touch in time 
 was the first element in thought. He sees that 
 the spirit of man, though the latest to elaborate of!^ 
 all the works of God, was just for that reason the- 
 motive power which lay at the foundation of these
 
 238 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezu ? 
 
 works, and constituted the ideal of the Divine 
 Creator, He sees that the deliberative design, 
 " Let us make man," was really the mainspring 
 of all the other creative acts of God, and that when 
 the Divine Spirit moved upon the face of the 
 waters it was travailing with the birth of the 
 human soul. 
 
 This, then, in the view of the old faith, is the 
 goal of the providence of God in the history of the 
 world — the existence and development of spirit. 
 What, now, in the view of the new faith of evolu- 
 tion, is the goal of that agency which Mr Herbert 
 Spencer calls an inscrutable Force ? However in- 
 scrutable it may be previous to its action, the 
 moment it has acted it has left traces behind it, 
 and these traces we are distinctly able to follow. 
 It is therefore a pertinent question to ask what, so 
 far as we have hitherto gone, has been the tendency 
 of that great primal Force which the most ad- 
 vanced representative of modern science recognises 
 as the main agent in the process of evolution ? 
 Nor can the answer be for a moment doubtful. 
 The main result of the process of evolution, ac- 
 cording to the testimony of its own advocates, is 
 the survival of the fittest ; in other words, the 
 gradual approximation towards a type of being 
 which shall be free from the mutations of the types 
 that have preceded it. And be it observed that 
 tlic type which modern science seeks is one not
 
 Evolution and Providence. 239 
 
 merely of generic but of individual survival. Evo- 
 lution, by the definition of Mr Spencer, is the 
 procession from the homogeneous to the hetero- 
 geneous — that is to say, from the state in which 
 the individual is absorbed in the mass to the state 
 in which the individual asserts itself over the mass. 
 And the actual history of evolution amply corro- 
 borates this view. Evolution is the history of the 
 process of individual survival, — the history of that 
 process by which life progressively asserts itself 
 over nature, and by which mind eventually domi- 
 nates over life. 'It is therefore a progress from the 
 lowest to the highest type of known existence. It 
 does not follow from this that the lowest type has 
 ever generated or can ever generate the highest ; 
 the process of evolution is one thing, its agent is 
 a very different thing. What we mean is, and 
 what Mr Spencer means is, that the inscrutable 
 Power at the basis of the universe has evolved 
 the forms of the universe from the simplest and 
 most rudimentary elements. The base of the 
 ladder of evolution rests on the ground. The 
 creation is originally in a state, not of life, but of 
 death ; and the process of evolution is not the 
 struggle of death with life, but the struggle of life 
 with death. It may be thought that we have here 
 a distinction without a difference ; we have, in 
 truth, a distinction of the widest import. It has 
 often been objected to the doctrine of a benevolent
 
 240 Can the Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 Providence, that it was no mark of providential care 
 to bring into the world an element of death to 
 struggle with the element of life. This difficulty 
 at least has been dispelled by the system of evolu- 
 tion, and in so far it has done good service to the 
 old faith in Providence. It tells us that death was 
 never sent into the world in order to struggle with 
 life ; that, on the contrary, it was life that was sent 
 into the world in order to struggle with death. 
 Death had from the very beginning the possession 
 of the field ; to say so is only, in other words, to 
 say that the world began with the formation of 
 matter. The first step in the creative process was 
 the creation of that whose seed was not in itself ; 
 in other words, of that which in itself was dead. 
 The first appearance of life on the scene was the 
 beginning of struggle, but on that very account 
 it was the beginning of a higher manifestation of 
 Divine benevolence. If there had been no life, 
 there would have been no struggle : but the 
 absence of the struggle would have been the 
 restriction of the benevolence ; it would have 
 simply indicated that death reigned supreme. 
 The appearance of life brought conflict, because 
 it brought a disputed sceptre. It placed in the 
 field for the first time an antagonist to the empire 
 of death, a disputant of its authority, a rival to 
 its power; and thereby it broke that calm which 
 through the undivided sway of death had reigned
 
 Evolution and Providence. 241 
 
 uninterrupted since the foundation of the material 
 world. 
 
 It is not difficult to see that for a long time 
 the conflict between the two antagonists would be 
 of a very doubtful nature. Death was at first 
 more powerful than life ; this was involved in the 
 fact of its long and uninterrupted possession. Life 
 came as an innovator ; it was not on its own 
 ground, and therefore it was not at first at home 
 in the struggle. The very principle of the survival 
 of the fittest gave death the original advantage. 
 Fitness means adaptation to an environment, and 
 death was more adapted to the first environment 
 than life. Hence it is that the history of evolution 
 is the history of a progressive vitality — we might 
 almost say, of a progressive immortality ; it is the 
 record of that process by which life gradually 
 obtained such a mastery over death as to enable 
 it to become a living soul. We see at first only 
 the action and reaction of the forces called physi- 
 cal in the constitution and preservation of material 
 forms. Then we begin to witness, as it were, the 
 prophetic anticipations of something higher than 
 the material in those strange selections of a geo- 
 metrical symmetry which we describe by the name 
 crystallisation. Next, life itself begins to appear, 
 at first simply spontaneous life, unconscious of its 
 own being ; then sentient and active life, conscious 
 not yet of its being but of its surroundings ; lastly 
 
 Q
 
 242 Can the Old Faith live zvitJi the Nciv ? 
 
 voluntary and reflective life, conscious at once of 
 its surroundings and of itself Such is the scheme 
 of evolution — a scheme so progressive that it can- 
 not be accidental, so orderly that it cannot be un- 
 intelligent. It seems essential to the very existence 
 of the scheme to presuppose the existence of a 
 typical plan after which it is aiming and towards 
 which it is shaping. At the base of the ladder is 
 death, at its centre is life, at its apex is life " more 
 abundantly." Is there any reasonable possibility 
 of avoiding the conclusion that what is last in 
 realisation was first in thought,, and that the under- 
 lying purpose of the principle of evolution was the 
 bringing into existence of the spirit of man ? 
 
 The goal, then, of evolution, is the production of 
 immortality, the bringing forth of something which 
 shall resist the original tendency to die. That 
 which qualifies an object for survival is, in the lan- 
 guage of evolution, said to be fitness. We must 
 not imagine that the survival of the fittest is equiv- 
 alent to the survival of the materially strongest. 
 No doubt the only test of strength is just the power 
 of an object to survive, but what enables an object 
 to survive is not always its physical strength. On 
 the contrary, it is not too much to say that the 
 history of evolution is the history of that process 
 by which physical strength gradually becomes the 
 least potent agent in the development of the world, 
 and by which other forms of fitness than the physi-
 
 Evolution and Providence. 243 
 
 cally strong gradually take the place of the older 
 and once all - absorbing element. At first the 
 physically strong alone survived ; there was no 
 room in the world for aught beside masses of 
 matter and the mighty forces which played around 
 them. By-and-by the extensive began to give 
 place to the intensive, and forms of life succes- 
 sively and progressively dominated over forms of 
 matter. But that domination was not due to any 
 superiority in the possession of physical strength ; 
 on the contrary, the new forms of existence were, 
 in respect of such strength, quite inferior to the 
 old. Had the struggle between them been con- 
 ducted on this basis, there can be no question that 
 the old would have vanquished the new. But the 
 struggle was not conducted on this basis. The 
 strife for survival was not a strife between the 
 physically strong and -the physically stronger ; it 
 would not be far out of the way to describe it as 
 between the physically strong and the physically 
 weak. The organisation which life brought into 
 the world was in itself much more tender and 
 liable to perish than those material forms which 
 it came to supersede in the order of creation ; and 
 if eventually it succeeded in superseding them, it 
 was not by reason of its superior physical power, 
 but because it had brought into the world a new 
 species of power whose existence was compatible 
 with the existence of physical weakness.
 
 244 Can the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 For this leads us to remark, that with the 
 entrance of Hfe upon the scene there begins to 
 emerge that type of being which is best described 
 by the name of sacrificial. The moment life is 
 planted on the globe there is planted the necessity 
 for sacrifice. The process of evolution thenceforth 
 progresses by the one surrendering its life for the 
 many, and the many for the more. The life of 
 sacrifice, like every other form of creation, is itself 
 a development, and is progressively unfolded. At 
 first it is involuntary ; the surrender is made as 
 the result of compulsion, and in submission to the 
 necessity of things. But with the development of 
 instinct there comes the beginning of something 
 like a sacrificial spirit, or of that which may con- 
 stitute the germ of such a spirit. The instinct of 
 self-preservation ceases to be sole master of the 
 field, and is compelled to share its empire with 
 another and a higher instinct — that which impels 
 the animal to provide for its offspring. This is 
 no doubt still a species of compulsion, but it is no 
 longer a compulsion of the old sort. If the animal 
 is compelled to sacrifice, it is no more compelled 
 from without but purely from within ; its necessity 
 has ceased to be a necessity imposed by outward 
 nature — it has subsided into a need imposed by the 
 nature of its own being. At last there comes upon 
 the scene a creature capable of a form of sacrifice 
 higher than cither of the two foregoing, and with
 
 Evolution and Providence. 245 
 
 the birth of the spirit of man the gradation is 
 potentially complete. In the spirit of man the 
 life of sacrifice is no longer involuntary and com- 
 pulsory, nor is it any longer merely the result of 
 an instinctive impulse ; it becomes for the first 
 time a deliberate and voluntary act. For the first 
 time in the evolutionary history of the world there 
 appears a being who, without any dynamical com- 
 pulsion either from without or from within, has the 
 ability to choose the path of sacrifice, and to sur- 
 render his personal joy through the simple motive 
 of impersonal love. This is the type which the 
 evolution principle has reached in the formation 
 of the first Adam. But, as we have already 
 hinted, it is as yet only potentially that man has 
 such a power. In point of fact, we have seen that 
 the first Adam failed in the actual exercise of 
 that sacrificial power which existed within him. 
 He did not attain in action to the ideal type of 
 his own being. His error lay in descending from 
 a higher to a lower sacrificial plane. The ideal 
 type of his being urged him to crucify the animal 
 within him ; he preferred, instead of this, to fall 
 back into the life of the animal, to sink into that 
 dust of the ground out of which he was taken. 
 The first Adam, therefore, did not really com- 
 plete the creation of man, did not fulfil that sac- 
 rificial type which was the promise of his being. 
 Another and a higher stage of humanity was
 
 246 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the New ? 
 
 wanted even to complete the ideal of the first 
 creation. The sacrificial life had after all been 
 only breathed into the nostrils ; there was wanted 
 a life whose inmost spirit should be animated 
 with the breath of sacrifice, and whose distinctive 
 characteristic should be the impartation to others 
 of a quickening power. 
 
 It will be seen that this development of the 
 principle of evolution is thus at the same time a 
 development of the principle of suffering. " He 
 that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow," is 
 a sentiment which has obtained place in those 
 sacred writings which represent the doctrines of 
 the old faith. The old faith and the new are thus 
 at one in finding a niche for sorrow in the natural 
 order of development ; the old faith declares that 
 it is involved in intellectual development itself, the 
 new that it emerges out of that process which in- 
 tellectual development implies. The old faith and 
 the new have this in common, that they both assign 
 a reason for the existence of something which to 
 the eye of common observation seems in a pro- 
 vidential system unreasonable ; they both claim 
 for suffering a place in the order and not in the 
 disorder of the universe, and in so doing they both 
 exalt our view of the universe as we actually be- 
 hold it. 
 
 It has often, indeed, been observed, that the act- 
 ual existence of animal happiness decreases as we
 
 Evobttion and Providence. 247 
 
 ascend the ladder of being. The increase of 
 knowledge is verily an increase of sorrow — we 
 might almost say, an evolution of sorrow. As we 
 proceed from spontaneity to consciousness, and 
 from consciousness to self-consciousness, we pro- 
 ceed from the absence to the presence of care. 
 One of the poets of ancient Israel has very strik- 
 ingly expressed this thought in his description of 
 the comparative unrest of man in the order of 
 creation : he tells us that the sparrow has a house 
 and the swallow a nest for herself, but that the 
 human soul longs and faints for a place in which 
 to dwell. The sentiment is very beautiful, and it 
 is not less scientifically true. If happiness be the 
 fitness of an object for its environment, then man 
 is of all creatures the least in possession of happi- 
 ness, for he is of all creatures the least in harmony 
 with his environment. This fact of man's com- 
 parative unrest in creation has seemed to many a 
 blot in the system of Providence. It has been to 
 them a source of wonder that the greatest exist- 
 ence in the circle of earthly things, and the ex- 
 istence which confessedly forms the centre of that 
 circle, should be less in possession of rest than the 
 creatures which occupy the circumference. But 
 it is when we turn to the law of development that 
 we find the best vindication of the ways of Provi- 
 dence. There are two ways in which an object 
 may be unfitted for its environment ; it may be
 
 248 Can the Old Faith live zuith the Nciv ? 
 
 unfitted by defect, or it may be unfitted by excess. 
 A creature may be too small for the conditions 
 which surround it, in which case it will be crushed 
 by them ; or it may be too large for the conditions 
 which surround it, in which case it will be oppressed 
 by them. The appearance of man upon the scene 
 was manifestly an introduction of the latter case. 
 Here was a being, gifted with natural powers, 
 whose action was much more accelerated than 
 the action of the powers of nature. It was in- 
 evitable that such a being should in process of 
 time outgrow his environment. Now the out- 
 growth of one's environment is at one and the 
 same time a source of sorrow and an evidence of 
 dignity. It involves that sorrow which springs 
 from evolutionary unfitness, from the absence of 
 adaptation between a life and its surroundings; 
 it necessitates a sense of want and a feeling of 
 privation. Yet the very existence of a feeling of 
 privation which the environment of life cannot 
 supply, is itself an infallible proof that the life has 
 been to some extent enlarged and dignified — an 
 unmistakable evidence that it already holds within 
 itself the prophetic anticipation of an environment 
 more ample and more suited to its higher being. 
 Therefore it is that in the teaching of the old faith 
 there is ever a distinction drawn between two or- 
 ders of sorrow — a sorrow that does, and a sorrow 
 tliat does not, need to be repented of There is
 
 Evohiiion and Providence. 249 
 
 ever a distinction drawn between that suffering 
 which is simply sensuous, and that suffering which 
 is pre-eminently supersensuous — between the misery 
 that springs from the love of the animal nature, 
 and the unrest that flows from the sense of that 
 nature's inadequacy. What is meant by that 
 utterance which is written on the very threshold 
 of the temple of Christianity — " Blessed are they 
 that mourn, for they shall be comforted " ? No 
 religion would contend that mourning is in itself a 
 sacred thing ; and Christianity in particular bases 
 its opposition to sin on the argument that it leads 
 to sorrow and death. But the mourning which 
 Christianity pronounces blessed is a sorrow which 
 originates not in the presence but in the absence 
 of death. It comes from the fact that the soul has 
 obtained such an influx of life as to render the old 
 conditions of life no longer endurable. It has be- 
 come too large for its former dwelling-place, and is 
 therefore unfitted for its past environment. The 
 mourning which Christianity calls sacred, is a sor- 
 row which springs from the same source which 
 caused the heart of the Psalmist to faint within 
 him — the absence in the present state of things of 
 a tabernacle or dwelling-place sufficiently commo- 
 dious to satisfy the longings of the thirsty soul. 
 
 To sum up. The providential law of God's 
 government in the system of evolution is identical 
 with the providential law of God's government in
 
 250 Can the Old Faith live ivith the Neiv ? 
 
 the sphere of the old faith — the principle of per- 
 fection through suffering. The providential place 
 of suffering in the world is more vindicated in the 
 doctrine of evolution than in any other view of 
 nature, except that embraced in the direct teaching 
 of Christianity. The very nature of an evolution 
 from the imperfect to the perfect type of existence 
 demands the presence and the experience of suf- 
 fering, and demands that the suffering shall be 
 most present and most experienced precisely in 
 those beings whose evolution towards the higher 
 type is most marked and unmistakable. The 
 forces of evolution do not, and cannot in the 
 nature of things, move with equal speed towards 
 perfection ; they are not themselves equal in value, 
 and therefore they cannot produce equal results. 
 Life must necessarily move more swiftly than 
 matter towards the goal, and mind must neces- 
 sarily in its turn outrun the progress of life. This 
 outrunning of progress — this leaving behind of the 
 old environment, though it undoubtedly marks a 
 stage of higher dignity — cannot be divorced from 
 an experience of present sorrow. Old things have 
 passed away, but new things have not yet come; 
 and the developing life, by the very fact of its de- 
 velopment, has been in the meantime unclothed 
 without being clothed upon. Such a result cannot 
 be produced without an experience of deep un- 
 satisfiedness, a longing and .fainting of the soul.
 
 Evolution and Providence. 251 
 
 The sense of unfitness between the life and its 
 environment must inevitably deepen with the 
 enlargement of life itself; it will find its highest 
 manifestation in man, and its most perfect illustra- 
 tion in the highest man. It will be felt increasingly 
 in proportion as the ladder of evolution is ascended ; 
 and he who shall prematurely reach the spiritual 
 summit, shall be of all others the least in harmony 
 with his environment. The doctrine of evolution 
 coincides with the doctrine of the old faith in 
 holding that the perfect man must be a man of 
 sorrows.
 
 252 Can the Old Faith live ivith the Neiu ? 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND THE SECOND ADAM. 
 
 In the representation of the Book of Genesis the 
 primitive man did not accept his fall as an ultimate 
 and irreversible destiny. The beginning of his age 
 of calamity was the beginning of his age of pro- 
 phecy. From the very outset, according to the 
 narrative, he gave evidence that he was too large 
 for that new environment which had at once re- 
 ceived and confined him. The evidence appeared 
 in his becoming the recipient of a prophetic vision, 
 in which he saw himself restored to more than his 
 pristine greatness, reinstated on the height of his 
 first eminence not simply by a gift of birth but by 
 an act of moral conquest. It was foretold to his 
 spirit that a time would come in which the seed of 
 the woman should bruise the head of the serpent. 
 The vision was prophetic of a new phase in the 
 order of evolution, whereby that animal nature 
 which now was predominant in man, should be 
 conquered by that sacrificial nature which now
 
 Evolution and the Second Adam. 253 
 
 was weak and inadequate. It was the prevision 
 of a time in which the nature which at present 
 was least fitted to survive, was to supersede that 
 nature which now seemed Hkely to survive for 
 ever. 
 
 This beginning of prophecy was really a new 
 departure on the part of man. His spirit was 
 already looking out from those narrow limits that 
 encircled it, towards a great day of restitution in 
 which he should get back his own with interest. 
 Yet even in his most sanguine moments it never 
 occurred to him that the restitution was to be 
 effected by his own unaided power; the day for 
 which he looked was ever contemplated by him 
 as a " day of the Lord.'' He had learned from 
 the traditions of his past that the first man had 
 for a time been stainless, because he had for a 
 time been the partial recipient of a Divine incar- 
 nation. The breath or Spirit of God had con- 
 stituted his primitive glory ; if a second glory 
 were to become the heritage of humanity, he felt 
 that it could only do so by means of a similar 
 impartation. It was not by the ascent of man to 
 God that he hoped for the elevation of human 
 nature ; it was purely and entirely by the descent 
 of God to man. Nor did he believe that his vision 
 would be fulfilled by a simple regress to the days 
 of Paradise. He recognised the fact that the days 
 of Paradise had been short, just because the Divine
 
 2 54 Can the Old Faith live zvith the New ? 
 
 incarnation in humanity had been only partially 
 fulfilled — ^just because the breath of God had pene- 
 trated no deeper than man's nostrils. The time 
 to which he looked forward, and the only time to 
 which he could look forward with any hope, was 
 a day in which man should be the recipient no 
 longer of a partial but of a plenary incarnation, 
 in which the breath of God should permeate not 
 merely his outer organism, but his heart, his soul, 
 his consciousness, his deepest life. Accordingly, 
 the day on which his prophetic eye rests is the day 
 of a new revelation, or, as he calls it, a new cove- 
 nant. He contemplates the time when God shall 
 put His law in his inward parts and write it in his 
 heart — when the Divine Spirit shall be so poured 
 out upon all flesh that the relation of man to God 
 shall be no longer the attitude of simple obedience, 
 but the relation of a son to a father. He longs 
 for an age, and he anticipates the coming of an 
 age, when outward law shall become that inward 
 law which men call love — and when the necessity 
 to perform moral actions shall be no longer a 
 necessity imposed from without, but an irresistible 
 impulse springing from the Divine life within. 
 
 Such was the burden of man's early prophecies. 
 There was, however, another element which lent 
 to these predictions a peculiar force and vividness ; 
 we allude to the fact that they centred around a 
 historical person. The age of holiness to which
 
 Evolution and the Second Adam. 255 
 
 man looked forward was an age which was to 
 follow the common law of development. It was to 
 have its beginning, not in a general diffusion over 
 the masses, but in the life of a single and solitary- 
 individual who was at first to constitute its only- 
 representative. The life of holiness was to be 
 propagated from the historic personality of a 
 second Adam, just as the life of sin had been 
 propagated from the historic personality of a 
 first Adam : as man derived his corruption from 
 his union with the latter, so he was to derive 
 his incorruption from his union with the former. 
 Accordingly, man's primitive hope rested originally 
 on an historical incarnation, on an advent of the 
 Divine life on a single human soul. It rested on 
 the time when there should appear in the world 
 one who could emphatically be called the sinless 
 servant of God — one who should fulfil to the utter- 
 most the law of perfect obedience, and keep 
 unbroken to the letter the table of the Divine 
 commandments. In this sinless serva:nt of God 
 the prophetic anticipation of the human heart 
 beheld the medium not only of a new Divine 
 revelation, but of a new Divine life. In him the 
 life of God was, in an altogether unique sense, 
 to be incarnated in humanity ; God was to put 
 His Spirit upon him. It was no longer to be 
 that mere external contact which had constituted 
 the short-lived glory of the first Adam ; it was to
 
 256 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 be the union of heart with heart, the blending of 
 spirit with spirit, the meeting of the human with 
 the Divine. 
 
 Now it is the doctrine of the old faith that this 
 prophetic anticipation of the human heart has 
 been actually and historically realised, — that there 
 has really appeared in this world a being corre- 
 sponding to the ideal desire of the soul of man — a 
 being in whose life the Divine life has been incar- 
 nated, and in whose historical experience the new 
 life of humanity has been inaugurated. Before we 
 go one step further, we must ask whether, in the 
 light of the doctrine of evolution, such a faith is 
 scientifically possible ? If it be scientifically possi- 
 ble in the light of that doctrine, it will then be 
 time to ask whether its alleged manifestation does 
 or does not present any point of analogy to the 
 evolution principle. In the meantime, the main 
 question lies on the threshold : Is the doctrine of 
 an historical union between God and man compat- 
 ible with the existence of belief in the evolution 
 principle ; or — which is the same thing — would the 
 establishment of that belief as a necessary conclu- 
 sion allow us any longer to hold this tenet of the 
 old faith ? It is somewhat remarkable, at the out- 
 set, that Christianity claims for her doctrine of in- 
 carnation not only a place in history, but what 
 may almost be called a place in evolution. It re- 
 gards the union of the Divine life with the human
 
 Evolution and tJie Second Adam. 257 
 
 life not merely as something which was consum- 
 mated in time, but, what is of more importance, as 
 something which was consummated in the fulness 
 of time. In making this claim, Christianity seeks 
 to be in harmony with a certain order of human 
 development — in other words, with a certain evolu- 
 tion of law. But the point which we have here to 
 consider is, not the harmony but the compatibility 
 of the two doctrines ; we have simply to ask 
 whether the one is the negation of the other, 
 whether the proof of the one would destroy the 
 existence of the other. Until we have disposed 
 of this preliminary question, any further question 
 must be superfluous. 
 
 Now it is averred that there is one fact which 
 renders the doctrine of evolution incompatible with 
 the doctrine of a historical union between God 
 and the world ; the latter is the affirmation of a 
 miracle, and evolution is based on the principle 
 that a miracle is impossible. Evolution is the 
 doctrine which asserts that all things exist by 
 reason of law ; the Christian incarnation is a doc- 
 trine which maintains that at one period in the 
 history of the world God interposed to check 
 the downward current of a law of human nature. 
 The doctrine of the incarnation is therefore, it is 
 averred, the assertion of a miracle,^ and as such it 
 
 ^ All the miracles recorded in the New Testament are, strictly 
 speaking, but various modes of this one miracle. 
 
 R
 
 258 Can the Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 is irreconcilable with a theory of modern science 
 which is based upon the denial of the miraculous. 
 
 Let us look at this matter a little more calmly. 
 In what sense does the doctrine of evolution de- 
 mand the denial of all miracles ? There is one 
 sense in which it does demand such a denial ; it 
 denies that there can be any miracle coming from 
 outside the field of evolution. It refuses to admit 
 that there can be any agency acting in the history 
 of this world which is not already comprehended 
 amongst the agencies that are conducting the evo- 
 lution of this world ; in other words, it refuses to 
 see the operation of any other cause than the 
 causes which are admittedly at work in the actual 
 development of the universe. But we ask, Is this 
 equivalent to a denial of the supernatural ? What 
 if one of the causes which are at work in the actual 
 development of the universe be God Himself? 
 What if, as Mr Spencer says, one of the factors, 
 nay, the main factor in the process of evolution, 
 be the movement of that transcendental Force 
 which lies at the base of all things ? In this case 
 the miracle of incarnation, so far from indicating 
 a break or breach in the order of evolution, will 
 itself be one of the direct results of that order, 
 owing its origin to the main factor of the process. 
 We all admit, with the man of science, that an 
 absolute miracle would be an impossibility ; the 
 most pious Christian in the world would hold this
 
 Evolution and the Second Adajn. 259 
 
 the most emphatically of all. For what is an 
 absolute miracle? It is a miracle that contradicts 
 the Absolute, or, which is the same thing, it is a 
 prodigy which effects something contrary to the 
 nature of God. The very affirmation of an absolute 
 miracle is tantamount to the declaration that there 
 is something in the universe higher than God 
 — that is to say, higher than the highest. Such a 
 declaration will please neither the believer nor the 
 unbeliever ; it is at one and the same moment an 
 impiety and a contradiction in terms. We may 
 take it for granted, therefore, that if the transcen- 
 dental Force of the universe be, as Mr Spencer 
 says, one of the agents in the evolution of the 
 universe, there can be no miracle outside the range 
 of this evolution. But this leaves a vast margin 
 still for the action of the supernatural in nature. 
 If that which transcends nature be itself the main 
 agent in the natural process, then the process of 
 evolution itself is, by its own showing, a manifesta- 
 tion of the supernatural in the natural, an exhibi- 
 tion of the steps and stages by which the Power 
 which we acknowledge as inscrutable has revealed 
 its presence and its influence in the progressive 
 history of the world. If a union between God and 
 man has ever occurred in history, it can only have 
 occurred through the agency of that Power which 
 the most advanced representative of modern science 
 has placed at the basis of the law of evolution.
 
 26o Can the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 For let us just put to ourselves the question, In 
 what respect would Mr Spencer's conception of 
 the universe affect the possibility of the Christian 
 doctrine of incarnation ? If we accept Mr Spen- 
 cer's conception, it can no longer be said that there 
 is any inherent impossibility, nay, that there is 
 any inherent improbability, in a historical union 
 between God and the world. For, according to 
 Mr Spencer's view, that transcendental Force which 
 stands to him for God, and whose distinctive fea- 
 ture is its inscrutability, is already in contact with 
 the world, and in contact with it historically. It 
 is difficult, indeed, to see how in Mr Spencer's 
 philosophy we can avoid going still further; it is 
 difficult to see how, on his principle, we can deny 
 that the transcendental Force in the universe is in 
 contact with the world progressively. Mr Spencer 
 himself will not affirm, nay, he will most vigorously 
 deny, that all the manifestations of power in the 
 universe are equal to one another in value. His 
 philosophy is intended to prove that they are not 
 equal, — that there is a decided progress in the 
 development from the homogeneous to the hetero- 
 geneous, from the incoherent to the coherent, from 
 the indefinite to the definite. But if we take this 
 in connection with his own confession that every 
 step of this progress is the manifestation of an 
 inscrutable Power, is not his philosophy only an 
 affirmation in new words of that doctrine of the
 
 Evolution and tJie Second Adam. 261 
 
 old faith which sees in the history of this world the 
 revelation of an infinite Will ? If nothing can be 
 produced without the contact of the Inscrutable, if 
 everything which is produced is brought forth in 
 progressive stages of excellence, how can we avoid 
 the conclusion that the power which is called the 
 Inscrutable has itself been emptying out more and 
 more of its own being in order to manifest more 
 and more of its highest glory ? And if we should 
 be constrained to come to that conclusion, how 
 can we any longer believe that there is an incom- 
 patibility between the Christian miracle of the 
 incarnation and the evolutionary miracle of in- 
 scrutable manifestation ? 
 
 We wish now to direct attention to a point 
 which does not appear to us to have hitherto 
 received notice. It has been customary in theolog- 
 ical works to institute a comparison between the 
 representation given of the first Adam in the Book 
 of Genesis, and the representation given of the 
 second in the New Testament. That compari- 
 son has sometimes taken the form of a historical 
 parallel, oftener still of a historical contrast. But 
 there is one aspect in which, so far as known to us, 
 it has never yet been presented — the analogy of 
 the two representations as regards the subject of 
 evolution. The first Adam is distinctly described 
 in the Book of Genesis as having had a certain re- 
 lation to the evolutions of life which had preceded
 
 262 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 him ; the second Adam is distinctly described in the 
 New Testament as having occupied an analogous 
 position. In a work of the present order, whose 
 plan is not theological but scientific, this latter 
 form of comparison is the only one which can 
 have any significance ; but it is so pertinent to the 
 present subject, and so illustrative of our view of 
 evolution in general, that we shall offer no apology 
 for devoting a few moments to its elucidation. 
 
 It will be remembered that, as we pointed out 
 in a previous chapter, the formation of the first 
 Adam, or primitive man, is described in the Book 
 of Genesis as a double creation ; there is an earlier 
 and a later stratum of his being. The earlier or 
 lower stratum is depicted as a creation not rising 
 above the other forms of physical life, except 
 in degree. " The Lord God formed man of the 
 dust of the ground." We have said that if any 
 scientist should insist on finding a missing link 
 between the present nature of man and the nature 
 of the animal next to him in intelligence, this 
 representation of the Book of Genesis will give him 
 not only the right to seek for such a link, but the 
 suggestion of where it is to be found. The writer 
 of that narrative distinctly suggests that between 
 the highest of the acknowledged animals and the 
 creature which was inspired by the breath of God, 
 there was interposed a form of existence inter- 
 mediate in character, overtopping the physical life
 
 Evolution and the Second Adam. 263 
 
 of the one without yet attaining the spiritual life 
 of the other. We cannot tell, indeed, whether we 
 are to understand the interposition of an interval 
 of time between the man who was made of the 
 dust of the ground and the man who was consti- 
 tuted by the breath of the Divine Spirit ; nor does 
 it matter for our present purpose whether we do 
 or do not suppose such an interval. The point is, 
 that, in the v^iew of the Book of Genesis, the man 
 who was constituted by the breath of the Divine 
 Spirit was superinduced upon the man who was 
 formed from the dust of the ground. That living 
 soul which emanated from the breath of God did 
 not come to an untenanted organism ; it came to 
 an organism which was already tenanted by a 
 lower life, and this life it had to take up and 
 appropriate. The living breath of God had to 
 descend upon the world as it found it. It did not 
 supersede the previous stages of evolution in the 
 sense of annulling or expunging them ; it planted 
 itself on the latest step of that ascending stair 
 which had risen from the germ-cell of the faintest 
 life, to the being of him who, although still dust of 
 the ground, had in him already the prophecy of 
 the coming God. It is not too much, therefore, 
 to say, that when the breath of the Divine Spirit 
 incarnated itself in the life of man, it took up all 
 the imperfections of that life, nay, all the imper- 
 fections of all those previous stages of evolution of
 
 264 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 which the creature formed from the dust was but 
 the consummation and the crown. We cannot 
 say that it bore the sins of the world, because we 
 cannot affirm that the world as yet had any sin : to 
 make it possible for the world to have sin, the 
 Divine Spirit itself had first to come. There can 
 be no sin where there is no higher principle to 
 resist, and that higher principle is only given in the 
 life of God. But although we cannot say that the 
 Divine Spirit in the first Adam had to bear the 
 sins of the primitive man, we can say that as a 
 mere matter of evolution it had to bear his imper- 
 fection. In descending on the creature whose 
 origin was the dust of the ground, it became heir 
 to a lower nature than itself — a nature whose con- 
 tact involved the beginning of a struggle in the 
 Divine life, just as surely as it involved the begin- 
 ning of a struggle in the human. The rest of God 
 was of necessity broken almost immediately after 
 it was begun. It was not possible that the Divine 
 breath should come into contact with the dust of 
 the ground, without initiating by that contact a 
 struggle for survival ; and it was not possible that 
 in that struggle for survival the Divine should not 
 suffer equally with the human. 
 
 We have already pointed out that, in the view 
 of Genesis, the fall of man produced a putting 
 asunder of the two elements which God had joined 
 together ; the breath of the Divine Spirit ceased to
 
 Evolution and the Second Adam. 265 
 
 be a power moving from within, and man return- 
 ed to his original constitution — the dust of the 
 ground. We have pointed out, at the same time, 
 that it was no mere return. In resuming his old 
 place in creation, he resumed it under vastly dif- 
 ferent auspices. To be the highest manifestation 
 of the physical dust did not involve any sin ; it 
 was simply an absence of holiness, involved in 
 the fact that the process of evolution had not 
 reached its utmost possibility of development. 
 But to be a recipient of the Divine breath, and 
 then to fall back again into the physical dust, was 
 a moral degradation ; it was no longer simply an 
 absence of holiness, it was the importation into 
 the world of a new agency — sin. We say a new 
 agency, not a new element. In point of fact, sin 
 did not introduce a new element into the world ; 
 the animal life in which it imprisoned man was 
 just that normal life which had constituted the 
 nature of his being previous to the outpouring of 
 the Divine Spirit. But when he returned to it, 
 while he received the same possession so far as 
 outward elements were concerned, he received a 
 totally different possession in idea. As long as 
 he was dust of the ground by natnre, his position 
 was natural to him ; when he became dust of 
 the ground by choice, his position was unnatural 
 to him — it was sin in him. The origin of moral 
 evil involved no new creation on the part of God ;
 
 266 Can the Old Faith live xvitJi the Nciv ? 
 
 it was simply a change of attitude towards the 
 old creation on the part of man. God had pro- 
 nounced everything to be good after its kind, and 
 the animal nature after its kind was therefore 
 also good. It implied, indeed, the absence of holi- 
 ness ; but the absence of holiness was natural to it, 
 and so did not make it bad. But when the Divine 
 breath was breathed into man's nostrils, the animal 
 nature which was left within him became merely his 
 lower being. The only course natural for him, the 
 only course which would render him good after his 
 kind, was to follow the dictates of the spiritual ; 
 his kind was spirit. In becoming an animal again, 
 he sank into sin : the old materialism which had 
 been sinless in him as dust of the ground, and 
 which was still sinless in the other products of that 
 dust, became thenceforth to him an element of cor- 
 ruption ; the change of mental attitude transformed 
 the evolutionary bias of the old object, and im- 
 parted a downward impulse to that which origi- 
 nally had indicated only an upward tendency. 
 
 It is here that St Paul steps in with a remark- 
 able theological statement, which has too much 
 bearing on our present subject to be passed over 
 in silence. He tells us that the fall of Adam was 
 not merely the judgment on a primitive individ- 
 ual, but an event which influenced the whole of 
 humanity, — " In Adam all die." This statement 
 receives its illustration and its corroboration in
 
 Evolution and tJie Second Adavi. 267 
 
 that law of heredity which is one of the factors 
 in the process of evolution — the law according to 
 which like begets like. We do not forget that 
 besides the law of heredity there is another, and 
 in some sense a contrary factor — that principle of 
 concomitant variation by which like does not beget 
 exactly like. One might be disposed to ask St 
 Paul whether this principle of concomitant varia- 
 tion could not of itself have altered the verdict " in 
 Adam all die " — whether the offspring, in its gradual 
 deviation from the parental type, might not by a 
 process of merely physical evolution have attained 
 again to the measure of the stature of the perfect 
 man. But we are quite sure that in this respect at 
 least Mr Herbert Spencer would give his verdict 
 with the Apostle of the Gentiles. Let us re- 
 member that in the view of Mr Spencer the prime 
 agent in the process of evolution is the Force called 
 inscrutable. Now the supposition of St Paul is, 
 that in the fall of man this Divine Force was with- 
 drawn from his moral life, and ceased for a time 
 to have any influence over him. Once concede 
 such a supposition, and the conclusion becomes 
 scientifically inevitable. Where could concomitant 
 variation be looked for when there had ceased to 
 be an agent acting concomitantly in the moral life 
 of man .'* Surely in this case the only possible 
 agency must have been simple heredity, propaga- 
 tion of the old element of sin, the production of
 
 268 Can the Old Faith live zuith the Nezu ? 
 
 like by like ? The only escape from such a diffi- 
 culty was to be sought in a second interposition of 
 that primal Force which had constituted at the 
 outset the glory of man. 
 
 Now it is the doctrine of the old faith that when 
 the fulness of the time was come — when the stage 
 of mental evolution was ripe — such an interposition 
 did actually and historically appear. No believer 
 in the philosophy of Mr Herbert Spencer can 
 affirm that such a doctrine is scientifically in- 
 credible. He who recognises the existence of a 
 Power which, in spite of its inscrutability, can 
 manifest itself in the universe in general, and in 
 every part of the universe in particular, ought to 
 have no scruple in recognising the possibility of 
 the fact that the same Power should manifest itself 
 in the conscious soul of a living being. But the 
 point we have now to consider is, not the credibility 
 of the doctrine, but its relation to that other doc- 
 trine of cvohition which is sometimes supposed to 
 be its denial. And here we are specially called to 
 observe the parallel between the evolutionary rela- 
 tion of the first and that of the second Adam. 
 We have seen how in the first Adam the breathing 
 of the Divine Spirit into the human organism was 
 really a breaking of the Divine rest. The breath 
 of the Spirit, by uniting itself to the dust of the 
 ground, became voluntarily the heir to a nature 
 lower than its own ; all the imperfections of all the
 
 Evolution and the Second Adam. 269 
 
 previous stages of evolution were laid upon it in 
 the moment of its inbreathing. In striking analogy 
 with this is the description given by the New Testa- 
 ment of that greater and more abiding inbreathing 
 Avhich is known to us as the Christian incarnation. 
 Here again the Divine life empties itself^ — pours 
 out a stream of its being to fertilise anew the being 
 of the creature. Here again this stream of the 
 Divine life condescends to blend with the soil 
 as it actually was, to touch its impurities, to be 
 coloured by its contact. The new life which has 
 come down from heaven, comes down no longer 
 like the first Adamic life upon a merely imper- 
 fect being; it descends now upon a sinful being. 
 It incorporates with itself an organism which is 
 morally corrupt, a personality which is perverted, 
 a vitality which is stained. It becomes heir to its 
 unfulfilled responsibilities, to the consequences of 
 its many and long declensions, to its pains, to its 
 penalties, — to that which, although coeval with the 
 existence of matter, has become to the human 
 soul the greatest of all penalties — death ; it suffers 
 in and for the sins of the world. 
 
 Let it be remembered that we are here looking 
 at Christian doctrines only in so far as they touch 
 the line of evolution. We want to determine 
 whether that touch is one of harmonious contact 
 or one of hostile collision. When we have deter- 
 mined this point, we have said all that at present it
 
 270 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 lies within our province to say. No one will there- 
 fore imagine that we have intended the foregoing 
 remarks as a theory of the Christian doctrine of 
 atonement ; we have intended them simply as an 
 indication of that point where the Christian doc- 
 trine of atonement forms a line of intersection 
 with the scientific doctrine of evolution. What 
 we say is, that the Christian doctrine of atone- 
 ment depends for its validity on the uninterrupted 
 continuance of the law of mental evolution. Let 
 us suppose that, before the second advent of the 
 Divine Spirit on humanity, there had come to 
 humanity an interruption of that law of heredity 
 by which sin had propagated sin. Let us suppose 
 that human nature had been suffered, by one of 
 those leaps or paroxysms which evolution repu- 
 diates, to ascend out of its state of corruption into 
 a state of incorruption, — what would have been the 
 consequence as regards that spiritual advent t It 
 would certainly not have rendered impossible the 
 Christian incarnation, but it would have rendered 
 impossible that doctrine of the Christian atone- 
 ment which teaches that the new life bore the 
 penalty of the sins contracted by the old. That 
 penalty could only be borne on the supposition 
 that the new life came into a humanity which 
 had not been magically nor even supcrnaturally 
 transformed, but which was still subject to that 
 great principle of evolution whereby the sins of
 
 Evolution and the Second Adam. 271 
 
 the fathers are visited on the lives of the children. 
 If the new life was to bear the sins of the world, 
 it could only be by so identifying itself with the 
 world as it actually was, as to become itself a 
 sharer in the law of its being. Hence it is that 
 when St Paul would describe the conditions pre- 
 liminary to the great work of Christian redemption, 
 he places in the foreground the bold announcement 
 that Christ was made under the law. That law of 
 Judaism of which he speaks, was in reality only 
 part of the wider and yet more stringent principle 
 by which the conditions of the past are reproduced 
 in the life of the present, and the consequences of 
 the deed done by our ancestors are reaped in the 
 experience of their descendants. The law to which 
 the second Adam became subject was that law of 
 mental evolution which had brought humanity to 
 the fulness of the time. 
 
 More pronouncedly than even the first Adam, 
 is the second represented as the child of develop- 
 ment. We do not allude to the fact that the first 
 Adam is described as having had no infancy. We 
 have already more than hinted that there is room 
 for doubt as to whether this is the representation 
 which the Book of Genesis designs to convey : it is 
 quite possible that the humanity formed from the 
 dust of the ground may have been the infancy of 
 that humanity which was inspired by the Spirit of 
 God. But waiving this question, it still remains
 
 2/2 Can tJie Old FaitJi live with the Neiv ? 
 
 true that the relation of the Divine life to the 
 normal development of the first Adam is de- 
 scribed as much less intimate than the relation of 
 the Divine life to the normal development of the 
 second. The former was, after all, only an outward 
 connection ; the breath of God was breathed simply 
 into the nostrils, and did not penetrate the heart. 
 There was no real union, no moral identification, 
 no actually existing reciprocity; the Spirit of the 
 Divine was unable yet to bear the sins of the 
 human. But in the second Adam all this is 
 changed ; here we have not only contact but 
 union, not merely inbreathing but incarnation. 
 The aim of the Divine life is to identify itself 
 with the life of the creature; and in the prosecu- 
 tion of this aim it submits to the law of the crea- 
 ture's life. It begins at the lowest stage of human 
 development, and it expands progressively from 
 sphere, to sphere. It passes through infancy, 
 through childhood, through youth, to the measure 
 of the stature of the perfect man. It grows in 
 human wisdom and in human knowledge, it learns 
 obedience by the things which it suffers. Its 
 incarnation in humanity is in truth rather a pro- 
 cess than an act ; it is itself an order of evolution. 
 It is perfect in each stage, but it is not perfect in 
 all stages at once ; it adds perfection to perfec- 
 tion. It grows from less to more, from great to 
 greatest. It appropriates one by one the spheres
 
 Evolution and the Second Adam. 273 
 
 of humanity, and vanquishes one by one the old 
 forces by which each of these spheres has been at 
 once environed and confined ; and it finds its cul- 
 minating stage in the overcoming of that force 
 which is the last and highest penalty of the human 
 soul — the power of death. 
 
 Nevertheless, as we said at the close of the last 
 chapter, it is clear that such a life could not be 
 lived on earth without an experience of the most 
 poignant sorrow. The life of the new man was 
 by very reason of its newness in advance of its 
 environment, and that which morally was its glory 
 became physically its pain. The Son of Man, 
 because He was the Son of Man, because He 
 was the prophetic representation of that ideal 
 which humanity should reach in the far future, 
 was necessarily in a state of solitude. He was 
 divorced from His surroundings by the very fact 
 of His greatness; in the treading of the winepress 
 there was and could be none with Him. It was 
 not simply that He was not understood ; He was 
 misunderstood. He occupied to humanity a re- 
 lation of seeming antagonism, nay, to the present 
 state of humanity a relation of real antagonism. 
 That which made Him solitary was not merely 
 a possession on His part of something which the 
 world had not ; it was a possession on the world's 
 part of something which He had not — the nature 
 of sin. That which made Him in advance of His 
 
 S
 
 274 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 environment was the transcendence of that animal 
 hfe, the subjection to which constituted the sin of 
 the human race ; and that which caused His Hfe to 
 be sohtary and alone, was just the inability of the 
 human race to look beyond the limits of their 
 animal nature. They could see no beauty which 
 they desired in Him. Prophecy itself had fore- 
 told that it must be so, — had foreseen that when- 
 ever the perfect Servant of God should appear, 
 He must, through the very perfection of His ser- 
 vice, be despised and rejected of men. If men 
 could have seen His beauty, they would have been 
 already beautiful, already in germ on a level with 
 Himself, The fact that they were not on such a 
 level, the fact that as yet He was but the har- 
 binger of the coming race, was itself sufficient to 
 necessitate His treading of the winepress alone. 
 The forces of the old life were in antagonism to 
 Him — and for a time it seemed as if these forces 
 would be the survivors. It appeared for a mo- 
 ment as if in the battle between the old life and 
 the new, the new would be vanquished by the old. 
 The force of death obtained a temporary victory, 
 and the Son of Man was crucified by the world's 
 sin. But the victory was only temporary and 
 only apparent. According to the sacred record, 
 the Son of Man vanquished death, and ascended 
 a conqueror from the grave. What is more to 
 the present purpose, according to that record He
 
 Evolution and the Second Adam. 275 
 
 vanquished death by the great principle of evolu- 
 tion — the survival of the strongest ; or as the writer 
 of the Acts expresses it, " because it was not pos- 
 sible that He should be holden of it." 
 
 Perhaps it may be thought that on this latter 
 point we ought to have preserved a judicious 
 silence — that here, if anywhere, the narrative of the 
 Christian record is at variance with the principle 
 of evolution. On the contrary, we have no hesi- 
 tation in saying that whatever difficulties attach 
 to the doctrine of Christ's resurrection, they are 
 not difficulties unshared by the belief in evolu- 
 tion. The animation of dead matter by the Spirit 
 of life is no unprecedented occurrence in the his- 
 tory of evolution. Every evolutionist will admit 
 that it occurred once, in that day when the first 
 germ-cell began to live. It is true, the conditions 
 of life must have been present beforehand ; but we 
 do not know what the conditions of life were, and 
 we do know, on the authority of Mr Herbert 
 Spencer, that the real agent in the process was 
 the Force which he calls inscrutable. Let us re- 
 member that it is this and no other agency to 
 which Christianity appeals as the source of her 
 central miracle. To produce the resurrection of 
 the Son of Man, she calls in the aid of no other 
 principle than that which Mr Spencer admits to 
 be the prime agent in every process of evolution. 
 If it be so, we cannot say that the doctrine of
 
 2/6 Can the Old Faith live zvith the New ? 
 
 modern science presents any barrier to the doc- 
 trine of the old faith. Modern science, in her prin- 
 ciple of evolution, has indeed proclaimed the im- 
 possibility of any interference with the course of 
 nature, or of the inspiration of any form of life 
 not produced by the factors of natural develop- 
 ment. But modern science admits that one of 
 these factors, nay, the only real agent of them all, 
 is just that great primal and basal Force which 
 the Christian reverences under the name of God. 
 Christianity, like science, admits that if God be 
 recognised as one of the factors in the natural 
 process of development, there can indeed be no 
 interference with the laws of nature, and no in- 
 spiration of. any form of life, which is not pro- 
 duced by the process of evolution. Christianity, 
 like science, believes in the ultimate inviolability 
 of natural law, because it believes the most natural 
 of all laws to be that law of the Spirit of life 
 which science in its own language describes as 
 the action of a Force that is inscrutable. Chris- 
 tianity, therefore, would repudiate the imputation 
 of having chosen an unscientific position in recog- 
 nising as a historic possibility the resurrection 
 of the Son of Man. It would deny that in so 
 doing it has called in the aid of any new factor 
 or of any novel agency. It would point to the 
 fact that it has sought for the cause of life in no 
 other quarter than that wherein evolution itself
 
 Evohiiioji and the Second Adam. 277 
 
 has declared its source, like the source of all other 
 things, to lie — in the presence and potency of that 
 inscrutable Force which, itself incomprehensible, 
 comprehends all. 
 
 But there is a resurrection of Christ which is a 
 matter not of testimony but of experience — the 
 inspiration of that new life which His death 
 brought into the world. Explain it as we may, 
 it remains a fact of history that at the very 
 moment when the spirit of Christianity seemed 
 crushed by the older forces of nature, it sudden- 
 ly, and, from the standpoint of these forces, un- 
 accountably burst into fresh and irrepressible 
 vitality — a vitality which, through all the changes 
 and vicissitudes of subsequent time, has been 
 steadily intensifying and progressively deepening. 
 The life which Christianity brought into the world 
 has been gradually vanquishing the older forces 
 of nature — not indeed by annihilating them, but 
 by assimilating them to itself No evolutionist 
 would deny, no Comtist even would refuse to 
 admit, that this life is now at least itself one 
 of the forces of nature, itself the most powerful 
 agent in the development and the preservation 
 of European culture and morals. The spirit of 
 Christianity, in whatever form it may have come 
 into the world, has, now that it is in the world, 
 submitted to become a part of the world's natural 
 law, and elected to follow that order prescribed by
 
 278 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezu ? 
 
 the principle of mental evolution. We have better 
 means of tracing the evolutionary order followed 
 by the spirit of Christianity, than we have of de- 
 termining the evolutionary order observed by the 
 spirit of nature, for the spirit of Christianity begins, 
 continues, and ends its development within the circle 
 of the individual consciousness. A consideration 
 of that process of individual development will 
 engage our attention in the succeeding chapter.
 
 Evolution and tJie Work of the Spirit. 279 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT.^ 
 
 " The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath 
 made me free from the law of sin and death." 
 Such are the words in which the Apostle of the 
 Gentiles describes the process of the new dispen- 
 sation. They are words which, on the very face of 
 them, reveal the presence of the most startling 
 paradox. That the new life should be subject to 
 law at all, is itself a fact different from our natu- 
 ral expectation ; that the law of any life should 
 be the source of freedom, is contrary to the usual 
 mode of human thinking. Yet it is the express de- 
 sign of St Paul to emphasise both of these points 
 as characteristics of the new dispensation. He 
 declares that the new spirit which has burst upon 
 the world is not to be distinguished from the old 
 spirit by the absence of a process of development, 
 
 ^ Throughout this chapter we assume — what has never been ques- 
 tioned — that there is an evolution of individual life within its own 
 limits.
 
 2 So Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 — that, on the contrary, the spirit of the Christian 
 life is to submit itself to a form of law. The choice 
 which a man is to receive in passing from the life 
 of nature into the life of grace is not the choice 
 between law and licence, but the choice between 
 a lower and a higher law. The difference between 
 the higher and the lower is not that the former is 
 to display less order than the latter, but rather 
 that the former is to manifest such a perfect order 
 that its effect upon the human soul shall be a 
 sense of perfect freedom. 
 
 Let us devote a few moments to an examination 
 of the points of contrast which were probably 
 present in the apostle's mind when he distin- 
 guished between the old law and the new, — be- 
 tween the law of that downward evolution which, 
 on its moral side, had followed the order of sin 
 and death, and the law of that upward develop- 
 ment which had received its initiating movement 
 in the birth of that new Spirit which had emanated 
 from the cross of Christ. His idea evidently is, 
 that the new law of evolution was to be distin- 
 guished from the old law of evolution precisely 
 by those marks which indicate the difference be- 
 tween the physical effects of life and the physical 
 effects of death. Let us see what are those marks 
 of difference. 
 
 The first thing which strikes us is this, that the 
 energy exerted by the forces of death moves in a
 
 Evolution and tJte Woj-k of the Spirit. 281 
 
 precisely opposite direction to the energy exerted 
 by the force of life. The energy of death acts by 
 disintegration ; the force of life acts by combina- 
 tion. Death tends to separate an organism into 
 disconnected parts ; life tends to unite discon- 
 nected parts into a common organism. The 
 apostle means to affirm that the difference be- 
 tween the old regime and the new Christian 
 Spirit is precisely parallel to this. The life of 
 nature, which he calls a state of death, had tend- 
 ed ever to the disintegration of the body politic. 
 Man had been unable to realise his relation to 
 his brother man, had refused to see that he was 
 his brother's keeper. Humanity had been ever 
 more and more passing into a state of individual- 
 ism in which each of its members had forgotten 
 the fact of his membership, and had come to 
 believe that he lived for himself alone. But St 
 Paul says that the new order of evolution would 
 reverse the effect of the old. The Spirit of life 
 which had emanated from the cross of the Son 
 of Man would, just because it ivas a Spirit of life, 
 exercise a tendency, not of disintegration, but of 
 reconstruction. It would build up what nature 
 had been gradually pulling down. It would take 
 the individual out of his individualism, and place 
 him in the membership of a great body politic, 
 where he would cease to recognise himself as 
 separate from the life of his brother, and would
 
 282 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the New ? 
 
 find even his self-interest to be inseparable from 
 interests not his own. 
 
 The second point of difference between the law 
 of death and the law of life consists in the fact 
 that the very same forces which in the former 
 produced corruption, conduce in the latter to the 
 maintenance and the fostering of vital power. 
 Light and air are agencies which produce cor- 
 ruption in a corpse, but they are agencies which 
 nourish the being of living germs. A living 
 creature is more in harmony with surrounding 
 things than a creature that has parted with its 
 life, and therefore the forces of nature which con- 
 duce to the disintegration of the latter minister 
 to the sustenance of the former. St Paul declares 
 that when the Spirit of the new Christian life 
 descends upon the old nature of a man, it not 
 only quickens that nature, but it quickens every- 
 thing around it, enables it to assimilate to itself 
 those objects which formerly had been barriers to 
 its progress. Hence it is that, in the view of St 
 Paul, the Spirit of Christianity brings an increase 
 and not a diminution of individual liberty — " He 
 that is spiritual ruleth all things." The increase 
 of life which the new Spirit brings to the human 
 soul is accompanied by a larger degree of cor- 
 respondence with surrounding objects. The pure 
 spirit weaves for itself a pure environment ; the 
 enlarged nature assimilates to itself the nature of
 
 Evolution and tJie Work of the Spirit. 283 
 
 things which in other days were contrary. St 
 Paul says that the world does not belong to the 
 worldling, but to the man of the Spirit ; he alone 
 is able without hurt to avail himself of the 
 materials which surround him, for he alone, by 
 possession of the Spirit of life, is in perfect har- 
 mony with his whole environment. 
 
 There is a third point of difference between the 
 law of death and the law of life ; the former is a 
 process, the later is a progress. The law of life 
 describes an order of upward evolution which 
 tends towards a definite end. The evolution de- 
 scribed by death is a gradual deprivation of legit- 
 imate functions ; the evolution described by life 
 is a gradual appropriation of functions. Hence St 
 Paul says that the new Spirit which has entered 
 into the world has produced a distinct change on 
 the human constitution ; it has made its recipient 
 free. Let it be observed, however, that the very 
 fact of the new life being a progress involves the 
 perception of something which in the old nature 
 was less apt to be seen — the appearance of in- 
 dividual imperfection. It is not easy to detect 
 the impurity of individual drops in a stagnant 
 pool ; the fact that it is all impure together pre- 
 vents one from singling out special places. But 
 if we could imagine the water to be gradually 
 undergoing a process of purification in which some 
 parts were affected before others, the impurity of
 
 284 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the Nezv ? 
 
 those others would then appear as a blemish in 
 certain individual drops of the water. The Spirit 
 of Christianity is an agency which professes to 
 purify by degrees the water of life. In the fulfil- 
 ment of this promise it is inevitable that the ap- 
 pearance of individual imperfections should be 
 much more manifest in the new than they were 
 in the old system. The vision of imperfection 
 only begins to exist when we see placed side by 
 side a hicfher and a lower manifestation. It is 
 then that, for the first time, the lower manifesta- 
 tion wears the semblance of a positive sin, because 
 it is then that, for the first time, its inferiority is 
 revealed to the eye of the beholder by the presence 
 of a more advanced stage in the order of spiritual 
 development. 
 
 The law of the Spirit of life, then, is a law of 
 evolutionary stages, a process of advancement from 
 less to more. This brings us to ask, what are these 
 stages — what is that order of evolution which is 
 described by the new Spirit brought into the world 
 by Christianity? With the actual character of that 
 Spirit, its personality and its attributes, we have here 
 no concern ; that belongs to the sphere of theology, 
 and does not touch any question of evolution. But 
 the question of the order described by the Spirit of 
 life as manifested in the world is itself a question of 
 evolution, and cannot be omitted from any survey 
 of the evolutionary system of nature. What, then,
 
 Evolution and tJic Work of tJic Spirit. 285 
 
 are these stages in the evolution of the Spirit of 
 life ? Perhaps we had better first inquire, what are 
 the stages in the evolution of all life as felt in our 
 consciousness ? We shall then be able to determine 
 whether the evolution of the Divine Spirit's agency 
 as represented in the Christian portraiture is in 
 harmony with that general order which the Spirit 
 of life everywhere has tended to pursue. 
 
 Now it has been generally conceded, and may 
 be verified by individual experience, that the law 
 of life in general is a progress through three stages. 
 The three stages will be found to permeate every 
 department of vital being ; but we shall confine 
 ourselves to the only department of which we 
 have any direct experience — our own individual 
 consciousness. 
 
 The first stage of human life, indeed, is one 
 which seems to lie behind consciousness ; it may 
 be called the stage of spontaneity. It is the period 
 in which the life of the man is in some sense analo- 
 gous to the life of the plant. The impressions of 
 the heart are felt but not registered, the impressions 
 of the intellect are experienced but not recorded. 
 The opening mind keeps no table of its own con- 
 tents, is ignorant of the treasures which itself en- 
 closes. To awaken it to a sense of these treas- 
 ures it is necessary that some foreign hand should 
 interfere with them. The life of the mind would 
 continue for ever like the life of the plant if its
 
 286 Can the Old Faith live zvith the New ? 
 
 spontaneous liberty were not broken by some 
 resisting object, if it were not awakened by opposi- 
 tion to the fact that it has a possession to lose. 
 
 That opposition comes to it in its second and 
 higher stage of development. If the first may be 
 called its period of spontaneity, the second may be 
 best described as its period of non-spontaneity. 
 In its first age it was so unimpeded that it was 
 unconscious of its own freedom, and therefore un- 
 able to value its own possession. In its second 
 age it finds itself impeded on every hand ; clouds 
 and darkness are round about it. It awakes to the 
 fact of its freedom only by the sense of its loss ; 
 and the days of childhood, which in their passage 
 were unobserved, are in their retrospect that para- 
 dise from which the cares and sorrows of the wil- 
 derness have for ever expelled it. This is the 
 period in which the life of man begins to experi- 
 ence an absence of perfect harmony with its en- 
 vironment, and begins to enter on those efforts at 
 readjustment which make the greater part of human 
 existence a life of labour and of struggle. 
 
 But there is a third stage of the natural life — 
 a stage which, indeed, from the side of nature, is 
 never perfectly realised, but to which every organ- 
 ism in nature is partially tending. If the first was 
 the period of spontaneity, and the second the 
 period in which the sense of spontaneity was 
 broken by struggle, the third is that golden time
 
 Evolution and the Work of tJie Spirit. 287 
 
 in which the struggle itself is vanquished and the 
 life returns once more to more than its pristine 
 rest. It returns to a rest which is no longer a mere 
 state of spontaneity, but a state of conscious pos- 
 session, in which the life becomes aware of its peace 
 by the very fact of its cessation from war. This 
 final stage of natural existence is the stage in 
 which the vital principle begins to realise somewhat 
 of the joy of being in harmony with its environ- 
 ment. If there were not even in the natural life a 
 partial realisation of this experience, the order of 
 natural evolution would have been arrested long 
 ago. The fact that that order has not been ar- 
 rested, the fact that life has still continued to 
 triumph over death, is alone a convincing proof 
 that in some region of its being, the organism has 
 found a point of harmony with the environment in 
 which it dwells, that ev^en in the present system of 
 things there does exist a certain form of rest. 
 
 Such, then, are the three successive stages which 
 life exhibits in its natural and normal development. 
 St Paul means to suggest that the new Spirit 
 brought into the world by Christianity has con- 
 descended to adopt the old line of evolution, has 
 elected to follow that law of successive stages 
 which has been the order exhibited by life in gen- 
 eral. Accordingly, we must be prepared to find 
 that the law of the Spirit of life is just the old 
 familiar law of all vital, mental, and moral evolu-
 
 288 Can the Old Faith live zuith the New ? 
 
 tion — the law by which the organism proceeds 
 from unconscious liberty to conscious limitation, 
 and from conscious limitation to realised liberty. 
 It may seem a strange thing, even an incongruous 
 thing, that in a work which seeks to derive its 
 materials from the field of science, we should intro- 
 duce a topic usually deemed so transcendental as 
 that called in evangelical theology the work of the 
 Spirit. We can only answer, it is because the law 
 of the Spirit of life professes to be the law of the 
 spirit of all life. It is because the new life, claim- 
 ing as it does to come from above, has claimed 
 with not less earnestness to have entered into union 
 with the common forms of human evolution and 
 with the prevailing order of human development. 
 We only take up the work of the Spirit in that point 
 where the work of the Spirit professes to touch the 
 line of natural evolution, and to grow from less to 
 more in the order prescribed by that line. All we 
 have here to do is to investigate and to interpret 
 the facts of the Christian consciousness. Even the 
 materialist cannot deny that these are facts. The 
 science of the positivist may and will dispute the 
 account given of their origin, and the explanation 
 offered of their existence in the human mind ; but 
 that they do exist in the human mind, and exist as 
 forms of the most potent energy, not even the 
 science of the positivist can deny. Let us then 
 endeavour briefly to collect, arrange, and interpret
 
 Evolution and the Work of the Spirit. 289 
 
 these facts of the Christian consciousness, and to 
 see how the law of the Spirit of Hfe describes in its 
 progress the order of universal vital being. 
 
 The first stage in the evolution of the Spirit 
 of life is portrayed in these words of St John's 
 Gospel : " The wind bloweth where it listeth, 
 and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst 
 not tell whence it cometh ; so is every one that is 
 born of the Spirit." The initial work of the Spirit 
 is here compared to the natural force of the wind. 
 The idea evidently is, that the wind begins to 
 blow before its blowing becomes manifest to the 
 ear. When we first hear the sound we cannot 
 thereby determine whence it has come, because, 
 in point of fact, it has had an existence and a 
 movement previous to the time when the sound 
 first reached our ear. When the wind begins to 
 whistle amongst the trees, we are accustomed to 
 say that it is rising ; it would, in truth, be more 
 correct to say that it has risen. What we hear 
 is not its beginning, but only its manifestations ; 
 the stage which precedes its manifestation lies 
 behind our consciousness, and therefore the sound 
 does not enable us to tell the moment or the 
 place of its origin : " thou canst not tell whence 
 it cometh." The work of the Spirit is said to 
 stand in an exactly similar relation to the human 
 soul. A man is sometimes asked when the in- 
 fluence of the new life began to act upon him, 
 
 T
 
 290 Can the Old Faith live zuith the Nezu ? 
 
 and sometimes he puts his hand upon a definite 
 place and hour, and declares that its beginning 
 was there. In truth, what he means is simply 
 this, that its earliest manifestation was there — that 
 it was there he first heard the sound of the wind. 
 No man can be present at his own birth. In 
 every sphere of life — physical, intellectual, moral, 
 and spiritual — the act of birth lies behind the 
 consciousness. It has been asked if a being can 
 live without knowing that it lives. In the first 
 stage of its existence every being not only can, 
 but actually does. Sensation must follow out- 
 ward impression. The pain of a blow is not con- 
 temporaneous with the blow ; it succeeds to it. 
 The sensation of existence in general observes the 
 the same rule ; we live before we recognise the 
 fact of our being. 
 
 The change called the second birth demands, 
 of course, a conscious preparation in the old na- 
 ture ; otherwise there could be no responsibility. 
 The old nature is not in itself the antithesis of the 
 new life ; it is a force, and all forces are manifes- 
 tations of the one primal Force. The antithesis 
 of the new life is not the human constitution, but 
 its disintegration or corruption ; and it has never 
 been contended that this disintegration or corrup- 
 tion eradicated the germ of man's primitive being. 
 It is through the germ of his primitive being that 
 man is able to become receptive of a life which
 
 Evolution mid tJie Work of tJie Spu'it. 291 
 
 differs from itself simply in being a higher mani- 
 festation of that central Life from which it sprang. 
 The change of the second birth, therefore, pre- 
 supposes and insists upon a recipiency on the part 
 of the old nature. Christianity only contends 
 that the change itself is not an object of actual 
 perception, is not present to the consciousness of 
 the old nature until it manifests itself by its sub- 
 sequent effects. In order to distinguish the differ- 
 ence between night and day, a man must open 
 his eyes : but even by opening his eyes he will 
 not detect the precise moment in which the sun 
 rises ; what he calls its rising is really but the 
 first manifestation to his senses of an event which 
 has already taken place beyond the range of his 
 senses. 
 
 There are two things which tend to obscure the 
 work of the Spirit in its first and preliminary 
 stage, and they are both things in which the law 
 of the Spirit of life is in harmony with the law 
 of the evolution of all life. The first of these is 
 the fact that the beginning of the Spirit in the 
 human soul is a birth. We popularly speak of 
 birth as the transition from a world of emptiness, 
 voidness, and non-existence into a world of ful- 
 ness, light, and life. Potentiall)', it no doubt is 
 so. But the actual process of birth is very far 
 indeed from achieving, or even from suggesting, 
 such a srrand result. Between the life of the em-
 
 292 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 bryo and the first hours of infant existence, there 
 is to all appearance a very thin line of separation. 
 Birth does not immediately usher the life into a 
 full blaze of consciousness. The new-born infant 
 is practically ignorant of the fact of its own being ; 
 and even those faculties of sense which are wait- 
 ing ready for its use are compelled for a time to 
 lie inactive and dormant. That is the reason why 
 the natural life is never able to give any account 
 of the earliest period of its existence. The facts 
 of that period were not registered even at the 
 time, and therefore they cannot be recalled at 
 any future time. It is in strict analogy with this 
 evolutionary law that a man, even when in posses- 
 sion of the new life, is still unable to tell "whence 
 it Cometh." The new life, like the old, had its 
 origin in a birth ; and the birth of the new life, 
 like that of the old, was followed by a period in 
 which the impressions made upon the heart and 
 mind fell upon them, as it were, unconsciously, 
 and left behind them no record of their existence. 
 The second thing which causes the work of the 
 Spirit to be obscure in its preliminary stage is the 
 fact that, like every other form of vital growth, 
 it proceeds from within to without. It is a law of 
 our being that we never observe a phenomenon 
 as long as it is purely inward. The feelings of 
 the human heart do not become objects of our 
 conscious reflection until they begin to experience
 
 Evolution and the Work of the Spirit. 293 
 
 some resistance to their exercise from the events 
 and objects of outward Hfe. Many a man is igno- 
 rant how fully he loves a friend until that friend 
 is removed by death. The illustration is pertinent 
 to the present subject. The work of the Spirit, 
 beginning as it does in the innermost region of 
 our nature, is not at first in contact with the out- 
 ward experiences of the world. The man who 
 possesses it is, therefore, originally very much in 
 the position of one who carries a treasure uncon- 
 sciously within an earthen vessel, and is himself 
 unaware of the great resources which lie at his 
 command. In order that a man may awake to 
 the knowledge of his own spiritual power, it is 
 necessary that this power should be brought into 
 collision with some other and more external 
 power. As long as it is perfectly internal, it must, 
 of necessity, be perfectly spontaneous, or, which is 
 the same thing, perfectly unrealised. 
 
 This leads us to consider the second of the 
 evolutionary stages embraced in the work of the 
 Spirit — that stage in which the life of spontaneity 
 passes away, and is replaced by a life of struggle. 
 And here it is that we are confronted by one of 
 the greatest paradoxes of all Christian experience. 
 To a reader of St Paul's Epistle, it must be at 
 once evident and surprising that the period of his 
 greatest inward struggle is not the period when 
 the new life dawns upon him, but the time when
 
 294 Can the Old Faith live witJi the Nezv ? 
 
 it is Hearing its meridian. When the man of 
 Tarsus is first struck by the light from heaven, 
 we hear nothing immediately of any inward strug- 
 gle. That struggle emerges only in the Paul of 
 the Epistles, in the man who has already reached 
 the ripeness of the spiritual life. It is just at 
 this stage where we should expect to find the man 
 rejoicing in the sense of a vanquished height that 
 we find him oppressed beyond measure with the 
 sense of his own sin. " O wretched man that I 
 am, who shall deliver me from this body of death } " 
 " There is a law in my members warring against the 
 law of my mind ; " " the flesh lusteth against the 
 spirit, and the spirit against the flesh ; the evil that 
 I would not, that I do, and the good that I would, 
 that I do not," — these are amongst the utterances 
 that come from the days of his high spiritual cul- 
 ture. His sense of sin seems to increase in propor- 
 tion to his advance in holiness, and his feeling of 
 distance from the goal becomes more pronounced 
 and painful in proportion as the goal itself is 
 neared. 
 
 Yet this experience of St Paul in the field of 
 Christianity is paralleled by every man's experi- 
 ence in every field of thought. The law of the 
 spirit of life is, in fact, a law of vital evolution. 
 All dissatisfaction is the sign of growth, and all 
 growth must issue in dissatisfaction. The region 
 of the new Christian life is no exception to the
 
 Evolution and the Work of the Spirit. 295 
 
 rule. The growth of Christian experience is 
 accompanied by a corresponding decrease in the 
 sense of merit, and the heights already gained 
 seem insignificant in proportion as the ideal of 
 duty appears high and luminous. Paul counts 
 not himself to have apprehended just because his 
 eye is riveted upon the mark of a prize which 
 must necessarily seem to him more inapproach- 
 able in proportion as he himself comes closer to 
 its attainment. Therefore it is that he and such 
 as he have found the second stage of the Spirit 
 more hard to bear than the first. It has even 
 seemed to them as if the march of the upward 
 evolution had been arrested, and as if they had 
 begun to enter on a declining path. The path, 
 however, is really an ascent, and the shadows that 
 are cast upon its way are shadows caused by light. 
 The increasing sense of sin is the increasing power 
 of holiness, and the increasing power of holiness is 
 the enlarged diffusion of the Spirit of life. 
 
 And this furnishes the real point of transition to 
 the third and final stage of the spiritual evolution. 
 If the first was an unrealised calm, if the second 
 was a broken calm, the third is a calm restored, 
 and restored no longer as a state of spontaneity, 
 but as a state of consciousness. Christianity terms 
 it distinctively the peace of God. The peace is 
 reached not by any act of asceticism, not by any 
 actual cessation from the conflict of life, but by
 
 296 Ca7i the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 a change of mental attitude towards that conflict. 
 It is reached by the recognition of the fact already 
 stated, that the sense of sin does really proceed 
 from an increased power of holiness, and there- 
 fore from an increased spiritual vitality. The 
 man who experiences it rests himself in the con- 
 viction that it indicates the presence of a Divine 
 life within him. In one aspect, his sense of sin 
 becomes his comfort, because it implies the dim- 
 inution of the sin itself He feels that he never 
 could have awakened to the knowledge that he 
 was breathing a foul atmosphere unless, like the 
 first Adam, there had already been breathed into 
 his nostrils the vitalising breath of an atmosphere 
 which was pure. He takes refuge in the sense of 
 his own demerit as a proof that there is dwelling 
 within him a life higher than his own, which has 
 thrown his own into shadow — that life which St 
 Paul presents to his Christian converts as Christ 
 ill tJian the hope of glory. 
 
 Now St Paul declares that when a man has 
 reached this third stage of the spiritual ev^olution 
 he is placed in a new relation towards surround- 
 ing things — he enters for the first time into a sense 
 of perfect freedom ; " the law of the Spirit of life 
 hath made me free." St Paul would certainly 
 have disagreed with those modern men of science 
 who regard the sense of freedom as arising simply 
 out of our ignorance of law. On the contrary, he
 
 Evolution and the Work of the Spirit. 297 
 
 declares that it is only by our knowledge of law, 
 and by our assimilation to law, that the sense of 
 freedom is acquired. He would say that as long 
 as a man regards his spiritual nature as a nature 
 which ought to be exempt from all worldly con- 
 ditions, that man will feel himself perpetually in a 
 state of slavery and bondage ; he will groan under 
 the weight of chains which, it seems to him, he has 
 no right to bear. But the moment he comes to 
 realise that he has a right to bear them, nay, that 
 it is for him a spiritual privilege to bear them, he 
 will then, for the first time, find himself to be free. 
 He will reach his sense of freedom in his assimila- 
 tion of surrounding law, in his acceptance of that 
 law as the law of his own being. He will enter 
 upon a new life of spontaneity, a spontaneity which 
 shall consist not in his ignorance of causes, but in 
 his power to utilise causes ; and his actions shall 
 become more completely voluntary just in propor- 
 tion as they become the necessary expression of 
 his higher life. 
 
 According, then, to the Apostle of the Gentiles, 
 the third stage of the spiritual evolution opens to a 
 man those doors of the present world which were 
 closed against earlier stages. The period of un- 
 conscious spontaneity, on the very ground of its 
 unconsciousness, had no relation to the practical 
 work of life. The period of struggle, on the other 
 hand, on the very ground of its being a struggle,
 
 298 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 necessarily placed the world in an attitude of an- 
 tagonism to the human soul. But St Paul says, 
 that with the advent of the third period there 
 comes a power which, even in the midst of the 
 world's struggle, can keep the heart and uiind, and 
 so keep them that the struggle of the world will no 
 longer be felt as a pain. He says that, when the 
 soul of man has appropriated the Divine life in its 
 full development, that Divine life will confer upon 
 him a power to utilise the world which he did 
 not possess without it. His liberty of diet will in- 
 crease in proportion to the soundness of his spirit- 
 ual health. The world is often represented as the 
 antagonist of the spiritual life. The truth is that, 
 in the earlier stages of its development, the world 
 is its antagonist. This is only, in other words, to 
 say that it is not yet in full correspondence with 
 its environment. Many kinds of food, which are 
 innocuous, and even beneficial to the man, are 
 hurtful to the child. As long as they remain 
 hurtful, they constitute so many hindrances or 
 qualifications to the child's enjoyment of worldly 
 freedom. But as the physical nature of the child 
 develops, this region of hindrances is gradually 
 abridged, until, in the perfect soundness of that 
 nature, the original antagonism is wholly over- 
 come. This is precisely Paul's view of the liberty 
 of the Spirit. It is a liberty of mental and moral 
 diet, a power to appropriate without injury cer-
 
 Evolution and the Work of the Spirit. 299 
 
 tain worldly pleasures and worldly avocations, 
 which, to the man whose spiritual nature is only 
 incipient, cannot become possessions without in- 
 volving hurt. 
 
 Now there are two spheres in which, in the view 
 of St Paul, the liberty of the Spirit operates; — the 
 sphere of society and the sphere of religion. Let 
 us look first at the sphere of society. What is 
 that social change which the Spirit of Christianity 
 has produced upon the world, or, to employ scien- 
 tific language, in what respect has the old order of 
 social evolution been modified by the new .'' In 
 the old order of social evolution the individual is 
 again and again reminded that he cannot live for 
 himself alone — again and again forced to remember 
 that he is in reality but one member of an organ- 
 ism, and owes his subsistence to the harmony of 
 his life with the life and being of the other 
 members. Now this is precisely the doctrine of 
 the Christian Spirit. Christianity has proclaimed 
 and emphasised the truth that the life of the indi- 
 vidual man is not his own — that he lives and moves 
 and has his being in the life of a great organism, 
 of which his own personal existence is but a single 
 member. What, then, it may be asked, is the dif- 
 ference between the social privilege claimed by the 
 Christian Spirit, and the social dependence ex- 
 perienced by the subjects of the old law? If in 
 both systems the individual is only a fragment of
 
 300 Can the Old Faith live zuith the New ? 
 
 the whole, why should the later lay claim to a 
 freedom which the earlier has never professed to 
 enjoy ? The answer lies here : the Spirit of Chris- 
 tianity finds its freedom in that very circumstance 
 which to the pre-Christian age constituted the 
 ground of slavery — the necessity that each life 
 should rest upon another life. And the reason 
 why the new Spirit finds its freedom in a fact 
 which was the old nature's slavery, is that the 
 nature of the new Spirit is love. Freedom is the 
 gratification of one's nature ; if it be so, the freedom 
 of the Spirit must consist not in the independence, 
 but in the dependence of the Christian member- 
 ship. It is in the assertion of this organic unity, 
 without which the life of the individual is meaning- 
 less, that the Christology of St Paul presents so 
 remarkable a parallel to a doctrine of evolution, 
 supposed by some to be purely modern. In the 
 system of Auguste Comte, of Mr Herbert Spencer, 
 of Mr Leslie Stephen, of Mr G. H. Lewes, and of 
 modern scientists in general, we are forbidden to 
 study the life of the individual man as if it were in 
 itself a completed whole. We are reminded that 
 humanity is not a mere collective name for a series 
 of mental attributes, but itself an organic life of 
 which the individual is only a part. This was 
 exactly the doctrine of St Paul. He declared 
 again and again that we are members of a body 
 which, while it comprehends us, is yet larger than
 
 Evolution and tJie Work of the Spirit. 301 
 
 we — that we are in ourselves but incomplete and 
 meaningless fragments, and that we derive at once 
 our completeness and our significance from those 
 counterparts of our own individual life which exist 
 in the membership of the organic body. Wherein 
 St Paul differs not only from the Stoics of his own 
 day, but from many of the scientists of ours, is in 
 the fact that he accepts with joyful acquiescence 
 what they receive with sullen resignation. The 
 same principle which contributes to the slavery of 
 the outer man constitutes the liberty of the Spirit ; 
 for the Spirit of love must find its liberty in the 
 exercise of that nature which seeketh not her 
 own. 
 
 The other sphere which, in the view of St Paul, 
 manifests the freedom of the Spirit is religion, or 
 the attitude of the soul towards God. Paul held 
 that the religious freedom conferred by Christianity 
 consisted in the fact that all hindrance was there 
 removed to a direct Divine communion. In the 
 older system of Judaism man had not enjoyed a 
 sense of direct communion with God ; this had 
 been prevented by his sense of the majesty of law. 
 The law had been to the Jew a virtual barrier in- 
 terposed between himself and the Creator. He 
 had looked upon it as something whose sole design 
 was to remind him of his own inferiority, to keep 
 him in perpetual remembrance of the fact that he 
 was a servant. The law was to him a bado-e of his
 
 302 Can the Old Faith live ivith the Nezv ? 
 
 slavery^, a token of his bondage. It conveyed to 
 his mind no other notion than that of obedience to 
 a Master from whose mandate there could be no 
 escape, and from whose sentence there could be no 
 appeal ; and therefore in its presence he lost his 
 own sense of freedom, and felt his own personality 
 to be dwarfed and overshadowed. But now let us 
 observe in what respect the doctrine of St Paul 
 differs from the doctrine of the Jew. It is not in 
 the abolition of the law that the difference lies ; 
 St Paul never believed and never taught that the 
 law was abolished. All the moral requirements of 
 the Decalogue he felt to be as binding upon him 
 as ever they had been upon his countrymen. The 
 freedom which St Paul felt in the new Spirit was a 
 freedom not from the law, but in the law. That 
 which was abolished to him was not the substance 
 of the mandate, but the sense of its being a man- 
 date ; the law still remained, but it was transmuted 
 into love. In the old economy it had constituted 
 a barrier to the direct communion of the soul with 
 God ; in the new it had become itself the channel 
 of that communion. In the old economy it had 
 been, as it were, the lightning of Mount Sinai, 
 which warned the human spirit not to seek the 
 Divine presence ; in the new it had become itself 
 the light of that presence seeking by its beauty 
 to attract the spirit of man. The change was a 
 change of relation, a change of mental attitude, a
 
 Evolution and the IVor/c of tJie Spirit. 303 
 
 change in the standpoint of the beholder. The 
 law of the new Spirit was not substantially different 
 from the law of the old ; the difference lay not in 
 the law but in the Spirit. The man of the new 
 Spirit accepted the old law of Judaism no longer 
 as a penalty, but as a privilege and as a boon ; 
 approached it no longer as a barred gate, but as 
 an open avenue which led directly and immediately 
 to the presence of the Divine. 
 
 Now it has seemed to many as if our nineteenth 
 century had reproduced in a new form, and with 
 an aggravated intensity, that spirit of Jewish legal- 
 ism which so long impeded man's sense of Divine 
 communion. It has been thought that the doc- 
 trine of evolution has again interposed between the 
 soul and God the barrier of a law which keeps the 
 human spirit from recognising the nearness of the 
 Divine. If it be so, then there can be no doubt 
 that the modern doctrine of evolution is much 
 more unfavourable to the religious spirit, than was 
 the older doctrine of Jewish legalism. The law of 
 the older doctrine was at least a moral law, and as 
 such it had in it an affinity to the highest nature of 
 man ; but the law of evolution might have existed, 
 and did exist where there was no spirit of man at 
 all, and is in its abstract essence simply a law of 
 nature. If the modern doctrine of evolution has 
 placed the law of nature in the place which once 
 was occupied by the life of God, if it has interposed
 
 304 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 between the Creator and the creature a mechanical 
 chain of causes and events, which has rendered it 
 impossible either for the Creator to reach down to 
 the creature, or for the creature to rise up to the 
 Creator, we shall then be forced to confess that the 
 spirit of modern evolution is at variance with that 
 instinct of religious communion which it has been 
 the mission of the Christian spirit to foster and to 
 mature. We shall consider this subject in the fol- 
 lowing chapter.
 
 Evolution and Divine Communion. 305 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND DIVINE COMMUNION. 
 
 The aphorism that ignorance is the mother of 
 devotion, has obtained wide currency both amongst 
 the friends and the foes of religion ; it has often led 
 its friends to look with disfavour on knowledge, and 
 it has frequently impelled its foes to look with con- 
 tempt on faith. Yet the aphorism, in its unquali- 
 fied form, is transparently contrary to the facts of 
 history. As a matter of fact, if we survey the his- 
 tory of the ancient world, we shall find that the 
 ages of devotion have been precisely those ages 
 in which the culture of humanity was most visible 
 and most deep. It cannot be forgotten that the 
 religion which of all other pre-Christian faiths in- 
 spired men most keenly with the desire of Divine 
 communion, was precisely that religion of Brah- 
 minism which expressed the belief of the most 
 cultured and the most philosophical of ancient 
 nations. 
 
 But if the aphorism in its unqualified form is 
 U
 
 306 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 false, there is a qualified form in which it bears a 
 semblance to the true. There is a species of cul- 
 ture which, on the first view of it, and especially in 
 the view of its early and incipient stages, has fre- 
 quently presented the aspect of a force antagonistic 
 to the spirit of religion. And this is precisely 
 the form of culture which, as a rule, has distin- 
 guished the nations of the West from the nations 
 of the East — has differentiated the intellect of 
 Europe from the intellect of Asia. The culture 
 of the European intellect has been for the most 
 part a culture arising from the study of things 
 without ; the culture of the Asiatic intellect has 
 been for the most part a civilisation arising from 
 the study of things within. It is clear at the out- 
 set that in relation to the sphere of religion these 
 two phases of mind will naturally tend to occupy 
 different attitudes. The culture which has been 
 born of pure mental contemplation will in itself 
 from the very beginning be in alliance with the 
 spirit of religion, and will tend by its own nature 
 rather to intensify than to diminish the soul's 
 longing for Divine communion. But the culture 
 which has been born from a study of external 
 things, will have in itself a natural tendency to put 
 the thing in the place of the thought, and will 
 thereby, from the very outset, be in danger of 
 interposing a material barrier between the human 
 soul and the object of its religious communion.
 
 Evolution and Divine Communion. 307 
 
 Now this culture of the West is what is called 
 distinctively the spirit of science. The name is 
 designed to designate its purely practical character, 
 to distinguish it on the one hand from the spirit of 
 philosophy, and on the other hand from the spirit 
 of religion. It has never professed to be the an- 
 tithesis of either of these, but it has always claimed 
 to walk on a different road from either, — to investi- 
 gate by a separate method, to reach its conclusions 
 by a distinct avenue. It cannot be denied that a 
 spirit which in its nature professedly occupies a 
 neutral attitude towards the results of philosophy 
 on the one hand, and the conclusions of religious 
 intuition on the other, may have on the part of 
 many of its votaries a tendency to develop from an 
 attitude of negative indifference into an attitude of 
 positive hostility. But the question is not what 
 effect scientific study may produce upon the mind; 
 the sole question is. What is the objective result of 
 the scientific study itself .'' — in other words, What 
 contribution has it made to the truth of the uni- 
 verse? Has it, or has it not, forced upon the 
 mind any conclusion which is inimical to the old 
 religious intuitions of the heart, any fact regard- 
 ing the constitution of physical nature which is at 
 variance with the long-cherished hope of commun- 
 ion between the soul and God ? That is the one 
 question, the only question between science and 
 religion, and on the answer to that question de-
 
 3o8 Caji the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 pends the solution of the problem, whether the old 
 faith can live with the new. 
 
 At present we are concerned, not with science 
 in general but with a particular theory of science — 
 the doctrine of evolution. The question which lies 
 before us is this, Would the proof of the doctrine 
 of evolution in nature nullify the conclusion which 
 has been reached by the evolution of the Christian 
 spirit in mind ? We have seen that the result of 
 this latter evolution has been to deepen within the 
 human soul the sense of a Divine communion ; 
 would the result of the former doctrine be to prove 
 that the conclusion reached by the latter is a delu- 
 sion and a dream ? In answering this question, we 
 shall first inquire into the relevancy of the grounds 
 on which the doctrine of evolution is thought to 
 place a barrier between the soul and God, and 
 afterwards we shall briefly consider whether the 
 doctrine of evolution is more unfavourable to the 
 spirit of religion than that older view of nature 
 which it professes scientifically to supersede. 
 
 What, then, are those grounds on which it has 
 been thought that the doctrine of evolution is 
 unfavourable to the sense of Divine communion? 
 It seems to us that they may be all summed up 
 under two great heads, — the seeming multiplica- 
 tion of secondary causes, and the actual assertion 
 of the principle of continuity. We shall direct our 
 attention to each of these in turn.
 
 Evolution and Divine Communion. 309 
 
 It is feared, then, that the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion removes God further from man by interposing 
 between the Divine life and the human soul a 
 multitude of secondary causes. And, indeed, at 
 first sight it must be confessed that the allegation 
 appears to be true. To the primitive man the act 
 of Divine communion is in one sense very easy. 
 He has never heard of any intermediate law in- 
 terposed between himself and the object of his 
 worship, and his worship is quickened by the be- 
 lief that he is standing face to face with the being 
 with whom he communes. Even to the man of 
 the earlier science, there was no necessary sense 
 of any intermediate agency between himself and 
 the object of his worship. He might quite well 
 believe in the existence of physical laws, and yet 
 hold fast to the conviction that the principle of 
 life within him had an origin independent of these 
 laws, and in the sense of that conviction it was 
 perfectly competent for him to separate between 
 matters of science and matters of faith. But the 
 new science of evolution has made this no longer 
 competent. Evolution claims to be not simply a 
 process that applies to the physical creation, but 
 a process which engulfs within its order the entire 
 circle of creation, whether physical or spiritual. 
 Accordingly, the man who accepts evolution can- 
 not accept it as a law that holds good merely for 
 a part of the universe ; he must either not receive
 
 3 1 o Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezu ? 
 
 it at all, or he must receive it as an absolute prin- 
 ciple, holding good for all space and acting through 
 all time. In this order his own individual life 
 must find its explanation as fully and as entirely 
 as the life of material nature ; and if he believes 
 that it tends to separate the life of material nature 
 from the being of the great First Cause, he will 
 be equally bound to conclude that it separates his 
 spiritual being from the same ultimate source. 
 
 Now it is not difficult to see that with such a 
 view of the case before him, the ardour of a man's 
 religious communion must naturally be very much 
 damped by the prospect of the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion proving true. He has been accustomed to 
 think of his individual life as a spark lit by the 
 hand of God, and it has been this very sense of 
 a parentage derived from the Divine that has con- 
 stituted the enthusiasm of his hours of religious 
 communion. But when he is told that this in- 
 dividual life has come to him by a process of 
 evolution ; when he is informed that the spark has 
 been lit from an earlier spark, and that from an 
 earlier still ; when he is pointed to the fact that 
 the humanity within him is but one link of a great 
 chain which stretches downward to creatures far 
 beneath him, — is it not natural that he should lose 
 the sense of his Divine parentage, and that along 
 with it he should lose his hope in the reality of 
 Divine communion ?
 
 Evolution a7id Divine Communion. 3 1 1 
 
 But while all this is natural and even necessary, 
 it is only so at the beginning, and only so because 
 the first view of evolution is inevitably a half view. 
 For, let it be observed, that in this account which 
 the mind gives to itself of the process, there is one 
 important element left out — an element which, if 
 admitted, would have altered the entire aspect of 
 the subject. It has been altogether overlooked 
 that this process of evolution, so far from being 
 an agency interposed between God and the soul, 
 is really a process which has God for its main 
 factor. What is the doctrine of evolution, as rep- 
 resented by Mr Herbert Spencer, its most ad- 
 vanced and uncompromising advocate } It is not 
 the doctrine that at some distant age of the past 
 a supernatural Power threw down a germ-cell of 
 existence, which by its own inherent strength grew 
 and fructified ; such a statement would, indeed, be 
 tantamount to the interposition of an entire uni- 
 verse between the soul and the object of its wor- 
 ship. But the doctrine of Mr Spencer is, that the 
 universe needs a transcendental Force or Power 
 for every moment of its existence, and for every 
 process of its development. Neither natural selec- 
 tion, nor heredity, nor concomitant variation, nor 
 environment, are with him the sole nor even the 
 main agents in the process of evolution ; the main 
 agent is the great primal Force itself, and all other 
 forces and phenomena are but the symbols and
 
 3 1 2 dm the Old Faith live ivitJi the Nezu ? 
 
 conditions of its acting. It is a point which often 
 escapes our notice, that in the philosophy of Mr 
 Herbert Spencer there is really something which 
 is not evolved. The most advanced disciple of 
 evolution has acknowledged as strongly as the 
 most pronounced theist, that there is a Force in 
 nature at the back of all its other forces which, 
 while itself the agent in the whole evolutionary 
 process, is itself unaffected by any part of that 
 process. The proof of this is, that Mr Spencer 
 declares again and again that this primal Force 
 is persistent, — in other words, that it continues 
 unchanged amidst the constant transmutations of 
 everything around it. Now if this position be 
 accepted, it will follow that the belief in evolution, 
 so far from withdrawing the spirit of man from 
 the presence of that transcendental Power that 
 lies at the basis of the universe, is itself a belief 
 in the perpetual necessity of that presence. Let 
 the doctrine of Mr Spencer be admitted, and what- 
 ever else the religious mind may deny, it will be 
 compelled at least to confess that it has found 
 at last in science the need for a Presence which 
 transcends science. Its sense of communion with 
 God will not only be preserved but justified, and 
 justified by that very doctrine of evolution which 
 was hitherto supposed to be the source of its 
 destruction. In that doctrine of evolution the 
 religious man will still find himself in the immc-
 
 Evolution and Divine Communion. 3 1 3 
 
 diate presence of the great First Cause. He will 
 be forced to feel as powerfully as did the Brah- 
 man that there is really no link of the chain 
 between himself and the Divine object of his 
 communion ; that he is every instant face to face 
 with a Power which is unsearchable, with a Force 
 which is transcendental, with a Strength which 
 is persistent, with a Mystery which is inscrutable, 
 and that his own individual life is as really and 
 as fully a product of this Mystery as if in all the 
 realm of nature there never had been any life but 
 his own. 
 
 We may conclude, then, that the first ground on 
 which the doctrine of evolution is supposed to be 
 adverse to the spirit of religious communion, is a 
 ground which cannot be substantiated in fact. It 
 rests on a mistaken view of the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion itself. If we accept Mr Spencer's explana- 
 tion of that doctrine, we shall find that, so far from 
 denying a transcendental Presence in the world, it 
 necessitates the acknowledgment of such a Presence ; 
 if we refuse to accept Mr Spencer's explanation as 
 the only admissible one, we shall still be compelled 
 to confess that it is at least a possible view ; and 
 such a confession is alone sufficient to save the 
 doctrine of evolution from the necessary imputa- 
 tion of leading to practical atheism. 
 
 We come now to the second of those reasons 
 on the ground of which it has been thought that
 
 314 Can ike Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 the modern doctrine of evolution is at variance 
 with the sense of religious communion. It is the 
 fact that in this doctrine every phenomenon of 
 nature is represented as linked on to some earlier 
 phenomenon. The doctrine of evolution repre- 
 sents all the objects and events of the universe as 
 connected by a principle of continuity. In primi- 
 tive times the great catastrophes of nature were 
 looked upon as isolated phenomena. The savage 
 crouched before the thunder and the lightning 
 because he deemed the thunder and the lightning 
 to be supramundane manifestations, — the special 
 voices of a creative Power pronouncing a special 
 judgment on humanity. But to the scientific mind 
 the thunder and the lightning have nothing special 
 about them at all ; they are manifestations just as 
 natural as the falling of the rain or the melting of 
 the cloud. They are forces of nature which arise 
 from causes that human reason itself can discern, 
 and whose effect might have been predicted by 
 any careful student of the phenomena of physical 
 nature. Therefore it is that to the man of science, 
 and specially .to the believer in scientific evolu- 
 tion, all the phenomena of nature, whether great 
 or small, are parts of a united system, and depen- 
 dent one upon another. Each manifestation of 
 nature is the link of a chain ; each link supports 
 the being of its predecessor, and accounts at the 
 same time for the life of its successor. The result
 
 Evolution and Divine Coinnmnion. 3 1 5 
 
 is, that ill the system of nature, as interpreted by 
 the doctrine of evolution, there is no break and 
 no room for spontaneity; every effect can be re- 
 ferred to a preceding cause within the Hmits of the 
 natural chain. But if it be so, the religious mind 
 asks, where is the ground for its religiousness? If 
 there is no spontaneity in nature, then there is in 
 nature no possibility of change ; and if there is 
 no possibility of change, of what use is the soul's 
 effort after Divine communion ? At the very root 
 of the idea of communion lies the thought of 
 prayer. If there be no possibility of change in 
 nature, must not the thought of prayer be a delu- 
 sion ? If the natural chain be composed of links 
 which are fixed and immutable, — if the order of 
 nature has followed a course of evolution which 
 my will is powerless to interrupt and impotent to 
 gainsay, — what purpose can then be served by my 
 offering up a petition which will not arrest the 
 development of the predetermined natural law ? 
 
 Now there is a point at the outset to which we 
 desire to direct attention, because it is very com- 
 monly overlooked by those who cherish fears on 
 this subject. One would imagine from this objec- 
 tion to the doctrine of evolution that it was the 
 doctrine of evolution which first suggested to the 
 believer in Christianity a sense of obstacle to 
 prayer by promulgating the changelessness of 
 nature. The truth is, the changelessness of nature
 
 3i6 Can the Old Faith live zuith the New ? 
 
 and the difficulties to prayer, real or imaginary, 
 which it involves, were not originally suggested 
 to the Christian mind either by the system of 
 evolution or by any theory of science whatsoever ; 
 they were suggested by a doctrine of Christian 
 theology itself. The essential changelessness of 
 the laws of nature is a doctrine not only of Chris- 
 tian theology but of the Bible. That God does 
 all things after the counsel of His own will, — that 
 the counsel of His own will is an eternal counsel, 
 conceived before the birth of time and of worlds, 
 — that the decrees eternal in the past are per- 
 petuated eternally in the future, — is a creed which 
 runs through the whole length and breadth both 
 of the Old and the New Testament. It is vain, 
 therefore, to say that if the notion of a changeless 
 nature be an objection to the validity of prayer, 
 that objection has been suggested to the Christian 
 believer by the promulgation of the principle of 
 evolution. It has been suggested by a part of the 
 Christian believer's own creed, and a part which 
 he of all men would be least willing to relinquish. 
 It constitutes one of the grounds of his confidence, 
 one of the causes of his assurance. If he could 
 believe for a moment that this anchor of Divine 
 immutability could be lifted, he would feel himself 
 indeed to be drifting on a landless sea. 
 
 Nevertheless, the mind of the Christian believer 
 has never been blind to the fact that this change-
 
 Evolution and Divine Connminion. 3 1 7 
 
 lessness of the universal law, which is an article of 
 his own faith, does present a difficulty with respect 
 to the possibility of answered prayer. In Chris- 
 tianity, as in every system of religion and philo- 
 sophy, men have been bound to recognise two 
 agencies at work, of which the one at first, view 
 seems the contradiction of the other. Here, as 
 everywhere else, we are confronted at one and the 
 same moment both by necessity and by freedom. 
 On the one hand, we are apprised that we are in 
 the presence of an Almighty Power, who has fore- 
 ordained all the laws of nature and determined all 
 the events of history ; on the other, we are re- 
 minded at every turn that man is a responsible 
 being, gifted with participation in his Creator's 
 nature, and therefore bound, above all things, to 
 seek support and sustenance from Him. These 
 are the two seeming contradictions which belong 
 to Christian theology, but not to Christian theol- 
 ogy alone — which constitute, indeed, one of the 
 mysteries of human nature itself, and one of the 
 antinomies which lie at the foundation of its being. 
 Christianity, as we have said, has never been blind 
 to the existence of this antinomy; and theologians 
 in every age have showed their appreciation of its 
 difficulty by the strenuous efforts they have made 
 to bridge it. 
 
 What, then, is the method by which Christian 
 theologians have endeavoured to bridge the ap-
 
 3 1 8 Can the Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 parent gulf between the God who decrees from the 
 foundation of the world and the God who answers 
 prayer? It is by divines of the Calvinistic type 
 that this subject has most commonly been grappled 
 with ; and as it is they who have expressed the 
 doctrine of Divine changelessness in its most rig- 
 orous and unbending form, it is from them that we 
 naturally seek an explanation. Their explanation 
 may be given in a single sentence, and it may 
 be put in a scientific form : they say that the 
 efficacious prayers of devout men are themselves 
 links of the universal chain. The Calvinistic theo- 
 logian denies that there is any incompatibility be- 
 tween the eternity of God's decrees in the past and 
 His response to human petitions in the present ; 
 for he affirms that the petitions were themselves 
 foreseen, or, as he would say, foreordained. In 
 this system, therefore, the links of that chain of 
 historical events, which have been constituted by 
 the decrees of God, have been constituted in order 
 to meet certain mental and moral conditions resi- 
 dent in the soul of the creature. The chain has 
 not been devised on mechanical principles ; it has 
 been framed in order to encircle an intelligent 
 being, and to correspond to those movements of 
 his intelligence in which he shall reveal the powers 
 of a voluntary agent. 
 
 Now, strange to say, the nearest approach we 
 can find to anything resembling this system is in a
 
 Evolution and Divine Coimminion. 319 
 
 quarter where, of all others, we should least look 
 for it — the system of Mr Herbert Spencer. For 
 we would call attention to the fact, that in the 
 system of Mr Spencer the links of the evolutionarj'- 
 chain are not mechanically united. Rigid as that 
 chain seems to be, it is really not to him an ulti- 
 mate fact of the universe, nor an ultimate expla- 
 nation of its laws. Ask Mr Spencer whether the 
 links of the evolutionary chain are bound together 
 by their own evolutionary power, and his answer 
 will not be for a moment doubtful ; he will tell you 
 that they are not so bound. He will tell you that 
 these so-called links of the evolutionary chain may, 
 for all we know to the contrary, be mere sensuous 
 appearances, to which the reality, did we see it, 
 would bear no resemblance. He will tell you that 
 in any case there is a reality lying behind these 
 links of the chain — a great, incomprehensible, per- 
 sistent Force which itself makes the links of the 
 chain. That Force Mr Spencer will not call 
 material ; he virtually refuses to do so when he 
 terms it inscrutable. It is true he is equally un- 
 willing to call it spiritual ; he prefers to assume 
 towards it the attitude of agnosticism. But the 
 very assumption of this attitude shows that there is 
 nothing in the facts of evolution \v\\\c\\ prevents a. 
 man from holding it to be spiritual. If Mr Spencer, 
 with the facts of evolution before him, can afford 
 to say that he does not know the nature of this
 
 320 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 Force, may not a believer in Christianity, with the 
 same facts before him, be allowed to cherish the 
 faith that this Force has the nature of mind ? If 
 Mr Spencer should say that evolution is opposed 
 to such a faith, he has then become inconsistent 
 with himself, and has departed from his own 
 agnosticism ; for that would be equivalent to 
 saying that we do know something of this primal 
 Force — the fact, namely, that it is not spiritual. 
 When Mr Spencer declares that this Force is 
 inscrutable, he really says that the doctrine of 
 evolution neither enables us to affirm nor to deny 
 anything about it ; and this is equivalent to say- 
 ing that any affirmation which faith may make on 
 the subject, the doctrine of evolution is powerless 
 to contradict. 
 
 There is, therefore, nothing either in the doctrine 
 of evolution itself, or in the facts which the doc- 
 trine of evolution involves, to prevent a man from 
 holding that the mechanical chain of events and 
 causes has its ground in the providence of a 
 spiritual Force behind them. And yet we must 
 confess that, as a solution of the seeming incom- 
 patibility between the changelessness of nature 
 and the possibility of prayer, we should deem 
 this explanation to be neither adequate nor satis- 
 factory. To be told that my prayers were from 
 the beginning foreseen or foreordained, and that 
 the constitution of nature was so ordered as to
 
 Evolution and Divine Conininnion. 321 
 
 meet their requirements, may be very true in point 
 of fact and very comforting in point of utility, but 
 is it a solution of the question which is adequate to 
 my wants as a religious being ? The deepest want 
 in every true prayer is the want of God. What a 
 devout man seeks in his petitions is, first and. fore- 
 most, a communion of his own heart with the 
 Divine nature. It is not too much to say that to 
 such a man the act of prayer is itself a greater 
 motive than its result, for he looks upon the act of 
 prayer as itself giving him the highest boon he 
 can receive — the actual fellowship of his soul with 
 the life of the Divine Spirit. But if the answer 
 to the prayer be merely the mechanical link of a 
 chain which was woven in a bypast eternity, how 
 can it be said that I have any evidence that God 
 is in communion with my soul at all .'' If an event 
 be foreordained for me, it will assuredly happen to 
 me ; but by the time it happens to me. He who fore- 
 ordained the event may have ceased to think of 
 me : the foreordination in itself would prove no 
 more than the fact that I was once an object of 
 thought to the ordaining Power of the universe. 
 The religious consciousness will not be content 
 with that. What man wants is not the proof that 
 a Divine Power existed in the past, but the evi- 
 dence that a Divine Power exists now and here. 
 He wants to feel not merely that the connection 
 between his prayer and the order of nature was 
 
 X
 
 322 Can the Old Faith live luith the Nezu ? 
 
 once provided for, but that it is now provided for 
 — that his prayer has, in fact, a present relation to 
 that Being to whom he prays. Nothing less than 
 this will meet the requirement of his religious life. 
 The question is, Can this requirement be met con- 
 sistently with that stability of physical nature 
 which is postulated by the doctrine of evolution — 
 nay, consistently with the immutability of those 
 decrees which are held to be binding by Christian 
 theology itself? 
 
 Now it seems to us that the best answer to this 
 question will be found by going direct to the ex- 
 planation offered by Christianity. What are the 
 elements which are involved in a Christian act of 
 prayer .-' It is commonly thought that there are 
 only two — a human suppliant and a Divine respon- 
 dent. The truth is, that Christianity itself in the 
 person of St Paul has declared this view to be 
 inadequate. In addition to the human suppliant 
 and the Divine respondent, he affirms that there is 
 a third agent, and this the initiating agent of the 
 whole process — a Divine prompter. The passage 
 to which we refer in illustration of this position is 
 Romans viii. 26, where the apostle says : " Like- 
 wise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity : for we 
 know not what we should pray for as we ought ; 
 but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with 
 groanings which cannot be uttered." The meaning 
 of this passage is frequently misunderstood. The
 
 Evolution and Divine Communion. 323 
 
 correct reading is not "infirmities," but "infirmity." 
 The fact of the plural form having obtained cur- 
 rency has diverted our view from the main idea in 
 the apostle's mind. He is speaking not of infirmi- 
 ties in general, but of a particular kind of infirmity 
 — the infirmity of human ignorance as to what 
 really is the will of God. In the preceding verses 
 he has been telling his readers that they are saved 
 not by sight but by hope — in other words, that they 
 must take for granted much that lies before them 
 in the future if they would not sink wearily by the 
 way. In this 26th verse he tells them that by any 
 light of their own they do not even know what 
 they ought to ask of God in prayer. They have 
 in their own strength no knowledge whether the 
 thing which they desire is or is not consistent with 
 the purpose of that Divine will which is the ulti- 
 mate law of nature. This ignorance is in itself 
 an infirmity ; and if there were no other agency 
 in prayer than a human petitioner and a Divine 
 respondent, it would be fatal to the continuance of 
 the prayerful spirit. But here Paul calls in the 
 aid of a third agency — that of a Divine prompter. 
 He tells us that besides the being who offers the 
 petition, and the Being to whom the petition is 
 offered, there is an agency antecedent to both — 
 a Power which suggests to the human soul that 
 which it ought to offer, that form of petition the 
 offering up of which will not be a prayer for a
 
 324 Can the Old Faith livezuith the New? 
 
 violation of the law of nature, or, which is the same 
 thing, an infringement of the will of God, — "the 
 Spirit itself helpeth our infirmity." 
 
 Here, then, is a very remarkable statement, and 
 a singularly scientific statement. St Paul was as 
 firm a believer in the immutability of the law of 
 nature as any scientist of the nineteenth century. 
 The difference between them lies purely in their 
 language : what the modern scientist calls the 
 law of nature, St Paul called the will of God. The 
 will of God was to him a principle even more in- 
 violable than the law of nature is to the scientist. 
 The scientist can never say with absolute certainty 
 that a time will never come when the present sys- 
 tem of the universe will be replaced by other sys- 
 tems. But St Paul would have said with absolute 
 certainty that a time could never come in which 
 the eternal decrees of God should be either modi- 
 fied or repealed ; the Divine will was for him 
 an unchanging and an unchangeable law. Over 
 against this conviction Paul, like the modern scien- 
 tist, had to place the consciousness of human free- 
 dom. He had to account for the fact that man 
 has the impulse to pray. He must either explain 
 that fact consistently with his first position, or he 
 must explain it away as an unreality and a delu- 
 sion. He accepts it as a reality, and he professes 
 to vindicate its consistency. He admits that the 
 law of nature is unchangeable, or that the will of
 
 Evolution and Divine Coninmnion. 325 
 
 God is inviolable, but he reminds his converts that 
 they do not know what this law is as long as it 
 exists in the future ; they can only know what it is 
 when it manifests itself in the present. Prayer is 
 that which reveals to them what the law of nature 
 is — what the Divine will is. Prayer is itself a gift 
 of the Spirit. The impulse to pray is a process of 
 illumination or prophecy, a revelation to the heart 
 beforehand of the purpose of God for them. They 
 are not in the first instance asking of God — that 
 is the second part of the process ; God is in the 
 first instance prompting them what to ask, tell- 
 ing them through the excitement of an inward 
 desire what it would be consistent with His pleas- 
 ure to give. 
 
 It is clear that to a man holding such a view of 
 prayer the unchangeableness of the law of nature, 
 so far from being an objection, would be a strong- 
 hold. If a Christian believer should pray in the 
 firm conviction that he will receive what he asks, 
 this conviction must rest on the fact that the thing 
 which he asks is a thing consistent with the will of 
 God, or, in other words, bound up in the ultimate 
 law of nature. To St Paul, therefore, the value of 
 prayer lay not in the violability, but in the change- 
 lessness of the ultimate law. The impulse to effi- 
 cacious prayer was itself a promise of God to the 
 soul, and a promise of God to the soul was a revela- 
 tion of the fact that the thing which was promised
 
 326 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 was decreed by the will of God, was a part of the 
 order of nature. 
 
 And this view will be confirmed by the reflection 
 that the ultimate desire prescribed for all Christian 
 prayer is the desire of harmony with the ultimate 
 law, " not as I will, but as Thou wilt." " Teach us 
 to pray," is the request made by the disciples to 
 the Master on the very threshold of the Christian 
 dispensation. The fact that the request is com- 
 plied with is itself a strong corroboration of the view 
 taken in the previous paragraph. It is assumed 
 that the disciple is not able in his own strength to 
 determine that which shall be consistent with the 
 highest law of the universe, and therefore a form 
 of prayer is put into his mouth expressive of those 
 wants the gratification of which will be in unison 
 with the plan of nature. In this form of prayer it 
 is a highly significant circumstance that the sup- 
 pliant is commanded to desire before all things the 
 kingdom of God and its righteousness. Before 
 offering up a petition even for his daily bread, he is 
 enjoined to pray that the name of God may be 
 hallowed, that the kingdom of God may come, 
 and that the will of God may be done on earth as 
 it is in heaven — an order which clearly shows that 
 the limits of Christian prayer are ever circum- 
 scribed by the possibilities of existing law. The 
 law of nature is here identical with the will of God, 
 and to desire emancipation from the law of nature
 
 Evolution and Divine Commnnioji. 327 
 
 is held equivalent to desiring a violation of the will 
 of God. Accordingly, the suppliant is enjoined 
 before all things to seek conformity with the 
 Divine will, and to make the prayer for that con- 
 formity the basis of every subsequent petition. If 
 he receives the promise of an answer to his prayer, 
 that ^promise is ever conditioned on the previous 
 attitude of his mind towards the law of the universe. 
 Nowhere is this more strikingly seen than in the 
 saying of the fourth Gospel, " If ye abide in me, and 
 my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, 
 and it shall be done unto you." It would seem at 
 first sight as if it were a promise of unlimited free- 
 dom in the range of prayer ; it is in truth a cir- 
 cumscription of that range. The disciple is really 
 told that if he enters into sympathy with the 
 Divine will, he will not be able thenceforth to de- 
 sire anything which is not already included in that 
 will, that his desires shall from that day become 
 limited to the possession of those things which it is 
 the will of the Father that he should possess. 
 
 We have dwelt on this point at some length, 
 because we believe it to be the point in which the 
 Christian idea of prayer becomes reconcilable with 
 the modern doctrine of evolution. The reconciliation 
 is effected without the slightest strain, or the least 
 necessity to twist the meaning of the facts of Chris- 
 tianity. So easily, in truth, do the facts of the 
 Christian consciousness adapt themselves to the
 
 328 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nczv ? 
 
 modern order, that one is tempted to ask if that 
 order be really modern, if that form of scientific 
 difficulty which presents itself to the religious mind 
 in our day had not its analogue and its equivalent in 
 some system of the early Church. We have seen 
 that, so far as the modern principle of continuity is 
 concerned, it assuredly was so. That changeless- 
 ness of nature which the scientist of the nineteenth 
 century beholds in the doctrine of evolution, the 
 Christian of the first century beheld in the Divine 
 decrees. To the Christian of the first century the 
 same philosophic obstacle presented itself as pre- 
 sents itself to the scientist of the nineteenth, and 
 the same problem awaited the former as now falls 
 to be solved by the latter. Therefore it is that the 
 Christian idea of Divine communion lends itself so 
 easily to the modern view of evolution ; the appa- 
 rent obstacle which it meets in evolution is identical 
 with that apparent obstacle which it met in the 
 Divine decrees. 
 
 It remains to ask whether the idea of Divine 
 communion is less favoured by the modern, or 
 evolutionary view of nature, than it was by the 
 view of nature entertained by the older form of 
 physical science. And here we must express our 
 opinion that in this respect at least the modern 
 doctrine of evolution has the advantage over its 
 scientific predecessors. It seems to us that a man 
 who has once accepted the principles of Christian
 
 Evolutio7i and Divine Communion. 329 
 
 theism will find in the doctrine of evolution an 
 illustration of the presence of God in the world, 
 which he would have failed to find in the older 
 conceptions of nature ; and we shall endeavour, 
 as briefly as possible, to set before the reader the 
 grounds on which we have arrived at this opinion. 
 
 There have been two extreme views which the 
 human mind has entertained of the nature of the 
 outer world ; they may be described repectively as 
 the spiritualistic and the materialistic view. They 
 have had their representatives in all ages. In 
 India they were represented by the Vedanta and 
 Sankhya systems, in Greece by the Platonic and 
 Epicurean systems, in Medievalism by the Realist 
 and Nominalist systems, in modern times by the 
 systems of Idealism and Empiricism. Out of these 
 we may select any pair of contrasts we choose, 
 without respect to their historical order. Let us 
 take, therefore, the system of the Platonist and the 
 system of the eighteenth-century Empiricist. In 
 these two poles, separated as they are by a vast 
 interval of time, we shall see the contrast exhibited 
 in its most marked and pronounced form, and shall 
 thereby have the advantage of estimating the full 
 strength of either tendency. 
 
 The Platonist sought communion with God by 
 the attempt to destroy the influence of nature. 
 He looked upon mind as the only reality, and on 
 matter as a simple negation. To him the material
 
 330 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 world was not so much evil as unreal; or rather, its 
 evil to him consisted in the fact of its unreality. 
 God was the most real Being in the universe, just 
 because He was the most spiritual, which meant, 
 to the Platonist, the most free from all material 
 attributes. To commune with such a Being it was 
 necessary that the soul should also be liberated 
 from material conditions. If it would enter into 
 union with God, it must consent to leave behind 
 it all contemplation of the sights and sounds of 
 nature, and must bury itself in a region of abstract 
 thought, where the sights and sounds of nature 
 cannot penetrate. Now the defect of this system 
 consists in its violation of the very purpose which 
 it is constructed to promote. Its aim is to secure 
 an unqualified communion between the Divine 
 life and the human soul ; in reality, it ends by 
 shutting out the Divine life from by far the 
 larger part of human nature. It draws a line of 
 demarcation between Divinity and temporal need. 
 It regards man's secular wants — his hunger, thirst, 
 physical privation, outward weariness, and the like 
 — as barriers to the reception of the higher spiritual 
 life, and it looks upon the completion of that life 
 as something which can only be reached when the 
 soul has emancipated itself from all mundane con- 
 cerns. This is certainly to diminish and not to 
 widen the natural avenues of religious communion. 
 At the extreme opposite remove from this view.
 
 Evolution and Divine Coninmnion. 331 
 
 stands that tendency as whose representative we 
 have taken the Enghsh empiricist of the last cen- 
 tury. If the Platonist sought communion with 
 God by destroying the influence of nature, the 
 empiricist of the last century sought communion 
 with nature by excluding the idea of God. . He 
 proposed to regard nothing as scientific which was 
 not material in character, to accept no object of 
 knowledge which did not enter the mind through 
 one or other of the five senses. He did not, indeed, 
 deny the existence of a transcendental Power ; but 
 then the transcendental meant to him the spatially 
 high. He saw no Power ivithin nature : nature 
 was to him mechanical, not dynamical ; it could 
 only be influenced from without. That at certain 
 periods of the far past it Jiad been influenced from 
 without, he felt bound to admit : the varieties of 
 created species and the evidence of constructive 
 design impelled him to the belief that there had 
 been certain special occasions in which the tran- 
 scendental Power of the universe had stooped from 
 His transcendence to put forth a supernatural 
 energy in the actual history of the world. But 
 when once the empiricist had accounted for his 
 variety of species, and explained by an original 
 Divine act the appearances of design in nature, 
 he did not trouble himself further to trace the 
 subsequent movements of that creative Power. 
 So far as he was concerned, it retired into the
 
 332 Can the Old Faith live with the Neiu ? 
 
 background when once it had framed the universe 
 and called into being the various orders of its life. 
 He thought of the Creator as one whose work was 
 done, or as one whose future work was only that 
 of the spectator. He believed that He dwelt still 
 in some vastly remote region, elevated indefinitely 
 above the most distant star, and was willing to 
 allow that there, perhaps. He continued to exercise 
 a certain lordly control over the united masses of 
 creation. But he never admitted that even this 
 general control was a matter of science ; he ac- 
 cepted it only as a matter of faith. The science 
 which Jie acknowledged could tell him only of that 
 which was intermediate between himself and the 
 Creator — the world of physical law. He looked 
 upon the laws of nature as the forms of existence 
 that separated the being of man from the being 
 of God. It never occurred to him that these laws 
 of nature might themselves be that which bridged 
 the gulf between the human and the Divine. He 
 could think of his God as superintending nature, 
 as regulating nature, as controlling nature ; but the 
 superintendence, regulation, and control were pro- 
 cesses conducted from a height : the mechanism 
 might be moved by God, but in itself it was a 
 mechanism still, and as such it was an inter- 
 mediate agency thrust between the human soul 
 and the Being whom it essayed to worship. 
 Such was the tendency of that scientific spirit
 
 Evolution and Divine Comviunion. 333 
 
 which began to dominate the European Intellect 
 at the time of the Reformation, and reached its 
 culminating force in the English and P'rcnch em- 
 piricism of the eighteenth century. It was, as we 
 have said, at the opposite remove from Platonism ; 
 but it is a familiar adage that extremes meet. 
 These extremes certainly meet in their practical 
 issue. The Platonism of the fifth century before 
 Christ, and the empiricism of the eighteenth cen- 
 tury after Christ, extremely opposed as they are 
 in standpoint, have yet one idea in common. They 
 both assume that there is an antithesis between the 
 natural and the supernatural, that physical nature 
 is in itself distinct from the life of the Divine. 
 Alike in Platonism and in empiricism, the idea 
 of nature is contemplated as a barrier to the idea 
 of God, and the difference between them lies in 
 the relative degree of importance which they as- 
 sign to these ideas. The Platonist looks upon 
 the idea of God as more useful to man than the 
 idea of nature, and therefore he proposes to crucify 
 the latter ; the empiricist looks upon the idea of 
 nature as more useful to man than the idea of 
 God, and therefore he proposes to live only in 
 the former. In either case, the thought of nature 
 is regarded as something which has no natural 
 connection with the thought of religion ; and 
 therefore, in both cases, the existence of the 
 physical world is looked upon as a barrier to
 
 334 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 man's cherishing the idea of communion with 
 God. 
 
 Let us turn now to the modern doctrine of 
 evolution as represented by Mr Herbert Spencer. 
 Here we are introduced to a thought which is 
 quite distinct in its nature either from Platonism 
 or from the older scientific empiricism. In both 
 of these systems the physical world was something 
 which divided the life of the human soul from the 
 presence of the creative Power. But in this modern 
 system the physical world is brought before us in 
 a new attitude — in the attitude of a medium tJiroiigJi 
 which the creative Power is present to the life of 
 man. Nature here, instead of a barrier, becomes 
 itself a revealer. In this new science, as repre- 
 sented by Mr Spencer, the transcendental no longer 
 means the spatially high, but merely the intellec- 
 tually inscrutable. There is an incomprehensible 
 Force at the basis of all things — a Force whose 
 nature is beyond the reach of human penetration. 
 But it is not itself on that account outside the circle 
 of nature, or separated from the life of man. In- 
 comprehensible as it is, it is not uncomprehending. 
 Incapable of being grasped by the human, it enfolds 
 itself the human and all other things. It transcends 
 physical nature, yet it dwells in that which it tran- 
 scends — nay, is itself the cause of that which it 
 transcends. Physical nature is one of its mani- 
 festations, as human life is another : neither of
 
 Evolution and Divine Coninumion. 335 
 
 them can exhaust its meaning, yet each of them 
 expresses a phase of its being. And this tran- 
 scendental Force is not only present in nature, it 
 is omnipresent. It not merely lies at the basis of 
 great phenomena, it is the cause of all phenomena. 
 To its action are to be referred all the forms of 
 nature, all the modes of vitality, all the phases of 
 evolution which the universe exhibits. The dis- 
 tinction is annihilated between great and small, 
 for the great and the small alike have their origin 
 in a source which transcends experience. 
 
 The bearings of this view on the doctrine of 
 Divine communion will be at once apparent. It 
 is true, if there were no other God than the Force 
 postulated by Mr Herbert Spencer, the very idea 
 of religious communion would be a contradiction 
 in terms. Mr Spencer will not allow that we have 
 any right to call his Force a person, or to endow 
 it with the attributes of consciousness ; and where 
 there is no conscious personality, there can be 
 no communion with other personalities. But Mr 
 Spencer himself will not affirm that the prohibi- 
 tion to endow his Force with personality has come 
 from the doctrine of evolution : he tells us in effect 
 expressly the contrary. He says that the doctrine 
 of evolution has no testimony to give upon the 
 subject ; and it is just on the ground of its silence 
 that he professes himself a religious agnostic. The 
 silence of evolution speaks in two voices ; if it does
 
 336 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezu ? 
 
 not encourage hope, as little does it forbid faith. 
 If the doctrine of evolution has nothing to say 
 on the subject of the Divine personality, it would 
 be highly unscientific in a theologian to claim its 
 testimony as an ally. But on the other hand, it 
 would be equally unscientific, in the face of this 
 silence, to regard the doctrine of Divine person- 
 ality as opposed by the doctrine of evolution. If 
 there were an opposition between them, there 
 would be no room for agnosticism. The very 
 existence of a feeling of mystery, the very sense 
 of intellectual ignorance which follows a survey 
 of the facts of evolution, is itself a proof that these 
 facts have still left open a door for the entrance 
 of faith. Now if we once allow faith to enter that 
 door — in other words, if we once assume that the 
 P'orce of Mr Herbert Spencer is a conscious per- 
 sonality — all the rest of the way will be scientifi- 
 cally smooth and easy. The doctrine of evolution 
 will not only not oppose our progress, it will 
 become itself our ally and our friend. We shall 
 thenceforth be able to hold the doctrine of a 
 Divine communion not only on grounds of faith, 
 but on principles of science. We shall no longer 
 deem it unscientific to say that in God we live and 
 move and have our being, for we shall recognise 
 in this sentiment a transhition of the Spenserian 
 dictum that at the basis of all things lies the Power 
 that is inscrutable. We shall no loncrer hold it
 
 Evolution and Divi)ie Coniniiinion. 337 
 
 superstitious to affirm that there is a Spirit helping 
 our infirmity, and telling us those things which we 
 may ask consistently with nature's law, for we shall 
 find that in point of fact our thoughts are being 
 hourly prompted by the movement of a mysterious 
 principle which underlies and manifests our. lives. 
 We shall no longer esteem it credulous to look 
 beyond the operation of finite or material causes, 
 for we shall learn as a verdict of science that the 
 causes which men call finite and material are but 
 the forebodings and manifestations of that great 
 First Cause — the primal Force of the universe. 
 
 There is, then, a place in the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion for the existence of Divine communion. Let 
 us suppose that the reality of this communion is 
 conceded, what does it imply .'' It clearly involves 
 much more than lies on the surface. If man can 
 commune with God, it can only be by having the 
 life of God, for the prerequisite of all communion 
 is essential equality of nature. But if man has the 
 life of God, he must have the immortality of God, 
 for the distinction of the Divine life is its eternity. 
 This brings us, therefore, to the final question be- 
 tween the science of the nineteenth century and 
 the teaching of the old faith — What is the relation 
 of that science to man's hope of a life beyond the 
 grave .'' To the consideration of this subject we 
 shall now advert.
 
 338 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezu ? 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 EVOLUTION AND IiMMORTALITY. 
 
 In the treatment of this subject Ave shall be 
 obliged to have recourse to some repetition. We 
 shall need to avail ourselves of some of those facts 
 which have been adverted to in previous chapters, 
 for there is such a close analogy between the 
 Christian doctrine of immortality and the Chris- 
 tian doctrine of God, that the principles which 
 elucidate the one serve also to illustrate the other. 
 Let us at the outset remind the reader that, 
 according to the doctrine of Mr Spencer, there 
 is in the universe something which is immortal. 
 That primal Force which, in his view, underlies 
 all things, persists also through all things, is in- 
 capable of either increase or diminution, is abso- 
 lutely unaffected by the successive changes of its 
 own environment. This statement of I\Ir Spencer 
 is more suggestive and more important than it 
 might at first sight appear. It has been fre- 
 quently asked, and commonly with an air of
 
 Evolution and Immortality. 339 
 
 despondency, whether the system of nature, as 
 exhibited by the doctrine of evolution, offers any 
 analogy that would lead to the hope of a life, 
 beyond the grave. If we believe Mr Herbert 
 Spencer, it offers something more than an an- 
 alogy ; it presents us with a direct statement of 
 fact. It tells us that the principle of immortality 
 is already in the universe, that it does not need 
 to be imported into it, that it exists now as a law 
 of nature. It tells us that at the root of all 
 changes there is something which is changeless, 
 that at the back of all phenomena there is some- 
 thing which is permanent, that at the base of all 
 evanescence there is something which is abiding. 
 Nature, in the system of Mr Herbert Spencer, 
 which is the most advanced phase of the system 
 of evolution, presents us with the fact of an actu- 
 ally realised immortality. 
 
 Now the bearing of all this on the relation of 
 the new creed of science to the old faith in im- 
 mortality is very remarkable. In the view of the 
 popular mind, there has been frequently drawn 
 a sharp antithesis between the system of nature 
 and the system of revelation, not altogether dis- 
 similar to that which in the creeds of ancient 
 Gnosticism separated the Demiurgus who made 
 the world from the God who ruled in heaven. 
 Nowhere has this imaginary antithesis been more 
 sharply marked than in the relative attitudes
 
 340 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 which nature and revelation are held to occupy 
 towards the belief in a future state. Man's hope 
 in immortality has been held to consist in his 
 belief that the course of natural law has been 
 interrupted. The supernatural has been looked 
 upon as the equivalent for the ?/;niatural, and the 
 dispensation of Divine grace as the abolition of 
 the order of nature. Christianity, in proclaiming 
 the doctrine of immortal life, has been received 
 rather as an anomaly than as a light. The office 
 of a light is to illuminate things already existing ; 
 the Christian doctrine of immortality has been 
 supposed to destroy the things already existing. 
 It has been taken for granted that within the 
 system of physical science there is no place for 
 the doctrine of a future life ; and while the man 
 of science has been suffered at his pleasure to hold 
 that belief, he has only been allowed to do so on 
 the ground of the Baconian principle that there 
 is a separation between matters of science and 
 matters of faith. 
 
 But now, for the first time, we are presented 
 with a view of nature which, in relation to the 
 doctrine of immortality, offers us something higher 
 than a mere attitude of indifference towards the 
 old faith. The modern doctrine of evolution is 
 professedly built on the lines of the Baconian 
 principle, and therefore it has pursued the method 
 of science without reference to the conclusions of
 
 Evolution and luimortality. 341 
 
 faith. All the more remarkable is the fact that 
 in relation to the belief in immortality the modern 
 doctrine of evolution Jias found that meeting-place 
 with revelation for which its predecessors have 
 looked in vain. If we believe Mr Spencer, we shall 
 be led to the conclusion that the existence of immor- 
 tality in the universe is not a novelty, and there- 
 fore not a break in the chain. Mr Spencer tells 
 us that the principle of immortality, so far from 
 being a new thing in the world, is in point of fact 
 the oldest thing in the universe — the thing which 
 lies at the basis of all other things. It is some- 
 thing which belongs to the being of that primal 
 Force which comprehends all nature, while itself 
 uncomprehended by nature. The only thing we 
 do comprehend about that Force is just the fact 
 of its persistence, of its pertinacity through all 
 changes, — in a word, of its immortality. But if 
 it be so, it follows that the introduction of immor- 
 tality into any special region of the universe 
 would never break the evolutionary chain. It 
 would not be a leap or paroxysm above the 
 original order of nature, but only a manifestation 
 in the circumference of what already exists in the 
 centre. Very significantly, therefore, is it stated 
 in the Book of Genesis that the immortal life 
 which was breathed into man was not a new life, 
 but one which had existed in the universe from 
 the beginning — the breath of God. He is said to
 
 342 Can the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 have become a living soul, not by a leap or par- 
 oxysm which broke the evolutionary chain, but 
 by the impartation of something which, according 
 to Mr Spencer, is the prime mover of the chain 
 of evolution — the persistence of a Force lying at 
 the basis of the universe : " God breathed into his 
 nostrils the breath of life." 
 
 Thus far, then, we are presented by the system 
 of evolution with something which is more than an 
 analogy to the immortality of the soul ; we are 
 presented with an actual revelation of the fact that 
 there is in nature a thing which is already immor- 
 tal. Can the doctrine of evolution go any further 
 in corroboration of the hope of immortality .'' The 
 immortality of force is chiefly valuable in showing 
 us that the idea of an eternal persistence is not 
 a thought contrary to science. But if the matter 
 ended there, we should, after all, have attained a 
 very small result indeed. If force be no more than 
 force, if it contains no other attribute than that of 
 abstract and unconscious power, the immortality 
 revealed by nature will be of little use or comfort 
 to the human soul. To know that no force in the 
 universe has ever been lost, to ascertain that no 
 atom in nature has ever perished, to prove that no 
 diminution in the quantity of being has ever taken 
 place, may be a satisfactory computation to the 
 arithmetician, but can be of no value to him who 
 inquires after the immortality of the soul. The
 
 Evolution and Iinniortality. 343 
 
 immortality of the soul is not a persistence of 
 quantity, not a continuance in the measure of 
 force, not a mere absence of diminution in the sum 
 of figures ; it is a continuity of quality, a prolong- 
 ing of consciousness, a persistence of something 
 which can at no time be weighed or measured. If, 
 therefore, we would have from science any light on 
 this subject, we must seek it elsewhere than in the 
 mere contemplation of force. The persistence of 
 force is only valuable to the doctrine of immortal- 
 ity in proving that the conception of immortality 
 is not alien to nature. We want to know whether 
 nature can go further, whether it can tell us of any- 
 thing which is immortal besides force : if so, we 
 shall conclude that this other thing is itself one of 
 the attributes offeree. 
 
 And here, again, we would direct the mind of the 
 reader to a fact to which we have already alluded 
 in another connection. In speaking of the idea of 
 God, we pointed out that unless we suppose a vio- 
 lation in the present order of physical science — in 
 other words, unless we postulate the belief in a 
 miracle compared to which the miracles of revela- 
 tion are mild — we shall be compelled to admit the 
 truth that life has never had a beginning. The 
 present order of physical nature is the law of bio- 
 genesis — the law that no living thing can proceed 
 from a thing which is not living. Unless we be- 
 lieve that at one time that law was violated by an
 
 344 Can the Old Faith live with the Nexu ? 
 
 act of spontaneous generation, we shall have no 
 alternative but to confess that life has been eternal. 
 If every living object presupposes a living object 
 before it from which it has derived its being, it is 
 impossible to imagine a time in which no living 
 object existed. We saw that two alternatives lay 
 open to us as possible hypotheses. We pointed 
 out that in the first instance it was competent for 
 us to hold, either that there had been an eternal 
 series of offspring and parents, or that the series 
 had begun somewhere by the impartation of life 
 from a higher source. In either case, we showed 
 that the result was the same ; whichever of the 
 hypotheses we adopted, was found equally to in- 
 volve the eternity of life. Ultimately we saw that 
 it was only in the first instance that we had an 
 alternative at all. We found that the hypothesis 
 of an eternal series of offspring and parents was 
 untenable in the nature of things, and that, as a 
 matter of scientific fact, we were driven to the con- 
 clusion that life in this world Jiad a beginning. 
 We were forced, then, to adopt the only remaining 
 alternative— the supposition that life in this world 
 had begun through the impartation of life from a 
 higher order of things, or, as we should say in 
 religious language, from the breath of God. 
 
 Now this fact, which was then used in its bearing 
 on the idea of God, has an equal significance in 
 relation to the doctrine of immortality. For if it
 
 Evolution and Immortality. 345 
 
 be proved that life has been already eternal, we 
 have already proved, not indeed the immortality 
 of the soul, but the immortality of that which 
 makes the soul. If life has had no beginning in 
 time, this is only, in other words, to say that life is 
 already immortal, that it has already proved its 
 capacity to live for ever. Here is another step 
 gained from the testimony of physical evolution. 
 Nature has presented us with a second fact which 
 presents more than an analogy to the doctrine of 
 the immortality of the soul, which tells us that the 
 material of which the soul professes to be consti- 
 tuted has itself exhibited in history the power of 
 an endless being. Two things, accordingly, are 
 revealed by the present system of evolution to have 
 been eternal — force and life. We are now pre- 
 pared to say that these two are one. We have 
 seen that in tliis world life Jiad a beginning, and it 
 follows that the life from which it came must have 
 been supramundane, or above this world. The 
 only form of being which evolution knows to be 
 above this world is Mr Spencer's inscrutable Force: 
 we are justified, therefore, in concluding that the 
 supramundane life which generated all other life 
 belongs itself to the nature of that inscrutable 
 Force, and derives its immortality from the same 
 source which constitutes its persistence. 
 
 Have we, then, solved the question of the soul's 
 immortality .-• By no means. We have seen that
 
 34^ Can the Old Faith live zuith the New ? 
 
 there is a principle of immortality in the universe, 
 and we have seen that this principle is a principle 
 of life — that there is a persistent force, and that 
 this force is alive. These, we think, are legitimate 
 conclusions from the law of evolution as we now 
 behold it. Yet this does not amount to a doctrine 
 of individual immortality. What is that which has 
 been proved to be immortal .-* It is only generic 
 life, life in the mass, the collective life of the uni- 
 verse. What is proved is the fact that there has 
 been no cessation in the flowing of the general 
 stream of vitality. But an individual immortality 
 has to do not with the stream but with the drops. 
 The immortality of force as a whole, and the im- 
 mortality of life as a whole, are certainly highly 
 suggestive facts ; they imply that even in the plant- 
 world and in the animal world there is an immortal 
 something, an element which is not destroyed by 
 death. But that is a very different thing from say- 
 ing that the forms of plant-life and the forms of 
 animal life are themselves immortal. So far as we 
 have yet gone, we have found no trace of such an 
 immortality; all that we have reached is the proof 
 that there is in the world something which has re- 
 vealed its capacity for infinite survival, and that this 
 something is of the nature of life. 
 
 Now if this persistent, living force had in- 
 trenched itself in the centre of each individual's 
 being, there would have been no such thing in
 
 Evohition and Immortality. 347 
 
 the universe as the fact of death ; it would have 
 quickened each individual form with its own per- 
 sistence. Instead of that, the living force of the 
 universe has not intrenched itself in the centre of 
 any individual's being, and the result is, that every 
 separate form of life — alike in the plant, the animal, 
 and the man — is subject to death. The Book of 
 Genesis says that man had the chance of attaining 
 to a contrary experience — the chance, that is to 
 say, of having the persistent force of the universe 
 embodied in the centre of his being. The truth of 
 that assertion the doctrine of evolution can neither 
 affirm nor deny ; it lies beyond the range of evo- 
 lution. But the doctrine of evolution can affirm 
 that the doctrine of Genesis is theoretically true, 
 that the indwelling of the persistent force within 
 the centre of man's personality would, as a matter 
 of fact, have exempted him from the common law 
 of mortality — would have made him immortal, not 
 only in the sense of being able to survive death, 
 but in the sense of being able to refuse to die. 
 
 There is now, however, no instance in the indi- 
 vidual forms of nature, of any special manifestation 
 of life being in the absolute sense immortal — that 
 is to say, there is no instance of immortality in 
 the sense of freedom from individual death. Yet 
 it does not follow that the individual life is ex- 
 cluded from immortality in the wider sense. We 
 may regard death as the inevitable lot of all indi-
 
 348 Can the Old Faith live zuith the New ? 
 
 vidual forms, and still continue to believe in a 
 reconstruction of the individual form subsequent 
 to death — in other words, we may believe that the 
 individual immortality which has been lost as a 
 rigJit may be given back as a gift. This is, indeed, 
 the precise doctrine of the old faith in relation to 
 the immortality of man. If man had received the 
 persistent force into the centre of his individual 
 being, his individual being would have been im- 
 mortal in the absolute sense ; it would have been 
 exempt from death. But although he has not 
 received the persistent force into the centre of his 
 individual being, there still remains to him a hope 
 that he may inherit immortality as a future gift of 
 God ; and that hope is converted into a certainty 
 by the indwelling in the second Adam of the 
 primal Power of the universe. 
 
 What is the relation of modern science to this 
 doctrine of the old faith ? Is it favourable, is it 
 adverse, is it indifferent t Each of these positions 
 has at different times been taken, and the natural 
 conclusion is, that science may seem to exhibit 
 one or other of them, according to the angle from 
 which it is received. We shall, in the first instance, 
 endeavour to inquire whether there be in the sci- 
 entific system of nature anything which, either by 
 way of fact or analogy, supports the doctrine of 
 the old faith ; and we shall afterwards consider 
 whether in the system of evolution there be any
 
 Evolution and Ininiortality. ^^g 
 
 facts or analogies which seem to point in an oppo- 
 site or counterbalancing direction, and whether 
 these admit of an explanation consistent with the 
 analogies of the old faith. 
 
 First, then, let us ask if the present scientific 
 system of nature presents us with any fact or any 
 analogy corroborative of the position that the 
 reconstruction of an individual life subsequent to 
 the fact of death is a possibility. One very im- 
 portant question lies on the threshold— Is death 
 annihilation ? We are not asking whether death 
 be the annihilation of the individual /(fe ; that is 
 not a question on the threshold, but the question 
 itself under consideration. What we say is, that 
 there is a preliminary inquiry — whether the ma- 
 terials which before death constituted the life of 
 the individual, are dissolved by the fact of death : 
 if so, then reconstruction is a contradiction in 
 terms, and so is resurrection ; the only possibility 
 would be re-creation, which is something very differ- 
 ent from immortality. But so far as this prelimi- 
 nary question is concerned, the facts of nature 
 come to our aid most thoroughly. We may state 
 with perfect confidence that the materials which 
 constituted the individual life before death are still 
 in existence after death. This is involved in the 
 evolutionary doctrine of the persistence of force, 
 besides being partially verifiable by actual experi- 
 ment. The doctrine of the conservation of forces
 
 350 Can the Old Faith live 7vith the Neiv ? 
 
 is the doctrine of the immortahty of forces — the 
 doctrine that when a physical form is disinte- 
 grated, the forces which existed within it remain 
 undiminished in quantity. When the flame of the 
 candle is extinguished, it is only put out in an 
 etymological sense ; it is put out of the candle^ but 
 its energy lives elsewhere. 
 
 Now what is the bearing of this on the subject 
 in hand } It is this. If we could once admit that 
 there is nozv a vital force in the individual man, the 
 existence of that vital force hereafter would be as 
 demonstrable as any proposition of Euclid. If all 
 the materials which constitute an individual life 
 continue to exist somewhere after the seeming dis- 
 integration of that life, then, conceding a vital spark 
 to be one of these materials, it would follow irre- 
 sistibly that this vital spark was not extinguished 
 by death. The truth is, that paradoxical as it may 
 seem, the scientific difficulty here does not lie in 
 the fact of death, nor in the inability to conceive a 
 state beyond death ; it lies entirely in a dispute 
 concerning the state on this side of the grave. 
 Admit that man has now a special force called 
 vitality, and so far as mere future existence is con- 
 cerned, the difficulties of the theologian would be 
 over ; the modern scientific doctrine of the correla- 
 tion of forces would itself demand for him all the 
 immortality he desires. But where the scientific 
 doctrine fails to produce demonstration is in the
 
 Evolution and Iiinnortality. 351 
 
 existence of a debatable land, not beyond the grave, 
 but in the human consciousness. The modern 
 agnostic is quite well aware that if you grant the 
 present existence of a special force called vitality, 
 you have, on the principle of modern science, 
 granted the survival of that force after death. But 
 the scepticism of the modern agnostic centres in 
 the present. He doubts whether there be a special 
 force called vitality. He asks us if we have any 
 evidence that what we call life is anything more 
 than a very subtle property of those material par- 
 ticles which constitute, when united, what we term 
 the bodily organism. Here, then, is a second ques- 
 tion arising out of the first. The answer to the 
 first question is hypothetically in favour of immor- 
 tality : it says that if there be now within us a 
 special thing called life, we shall be bound on 
 scientific principles to assume its immortality. 
 But the second question is, Is there a special thing 
 called life ? Of course this is a matter that cannot 
 be tested by direct observation. The existence of 
 the observer is itself the thing to be proved, and 
 that can only be proved by inference. No man 
 can see life in itself; he can only see its manifes- 
 tations, and the simple question is, What do these 
 manifestations teach } Under these circumstances 
 it will be better to drop altogether the abstract 
 language of the schools, and to confine ourselves 
 purely to the popular language of fact and pheno-
 
 352 Can the Old Faith live ivith the Neiv ? 
 
 mena. Instead of asking whether there be a spe- 
 cial force called vitality, let us simply put the 
 question whether there be in the nature of man 
 anything which cannot be explained or accounted 
 for merely as a property of those material particles 
 which at present constitute the bodily organism. 
 By this means we shall avoid all speculative ground, 
 and have the advantage of planting our feet on a 
 basis which science itself shall admit to be firm. 
 
 Is there, then, any position from which the man 
 of science and the theologian shall be content to 
 take their start together ? Is there any fact in the 
 mental constitution of man which will without 
 hesitation be admitted by both ? There is ; they 
 both admit that man has a consciousness of per- 
 sonal identity. It is true that immediately after 
 making this common admission they may diverge 
 wide as the poles. They may differ, on the one 
 hand, as to the source of this consciousness ; and, 
 on the other, as to the reality of the fact which it 
 testifies. The man of science may say that the 
 sense of personal identity is itself a property of the 
 material particles; or he may deny that, in point of 
 fact, there is any identity in the human organism. 
 We will return to these objections presently. In 
 tlie meantime, we have simply to take notice of 
 the fact that there is one point on which there is 
 no divergence of opinion, and that is the conviction 
 that man docs possess a sense of personal identity.
 
 Evolution and Iinniortality. 353 
 
 The thing to be accounted for, ahke by the theo- 
 logian and by the scientist, is not the fact of iden- 
 tity, but the belief in it. We stated formerly, in 
 speaking of the dispute as to the reality of human 
 freedom, that the question of its reality was to the 
 philosopher irrelevant — that the thing to be ac- 
 counted for by the philosopher was not the exist- 
 tence of freedom, but the existence of the sense of 
 freedom, of the belief that we are free. Precisely 
 analogous to this is the case before us : we have to 
 account for the fact that man feels himself to be 
 the same being during a long succession of years ; 
 and we have to account for it equally, whether it 
 be deemed the perception of an outward reality or 
 the experience of a subjective delusion. 
 
 We have said that the man of science may, 
 after accepting this fact, proceed to draw from it 
 two conclusions ; he may declare that the sense of 
 personal identity is a property of the united mate- 
 rial particles, and he may declare that it does not 
 describe any reality in the state of the organism. 
 Now, strange to say, the last assertion is emphati- 
 cally true, and it is by the proof of the last that we 
 are best able to disprove the first. Paradoxical as 
 it may seem, the sense of personal identity is an 
 anomaly in nature, and is at variance with every 
 phenomenon of nature. A man believes himself 
 to be the same person to-day that he was twenty 
 years ago. The question is, Why ? What does he 
 
 z
 
 354 ^^''^ ^^'^ O^'^ Faith live with the New ? 
 
 mean by himself? Does he mean that outward 
 organism which he calls his body ? If so, his sense 
 of personal identity exists in opposition to the 
 facts. There was not a particle of this body in 
 existence twenty years ago ; the organism which 
 he now possesses is not the organism which he 
 possessed then. He has, in point of fact, passed 
 through an actual process of disintegration and 
 reconstruction ; he has been unclothed and clothed 
 upon. The process of unclothing takes place 
 several times in the course of a human life — some 
 say every seven years. At the end of that period 
 there is probably not a vestige remaining of the 
 old tabernacle in which the life then dwelt; the 
 elements of the first body have passed away, and 
 they have been replaced by other elements assimi- 
 lated from surrounding nature. But the strange 
 thing is, that in the midst of this complete transmu- 
 tation, this virtual death, there should remain an 
 unbroken sense of identity. If the material organ- 
 ism be the man, why should the man continue to 
 feel himself unchanged after every particle of the 
 material organism has been dismembered .'' Is not 
 the very existence of this sense of identity a proof 
 that the material organism is not the man, an 
 evidence that there is something more in human 
 nature than those particles of matter and those 
 physical manifestations of force which have passed 
 away and left the consciousness of identity behind ?
 
 Evolution and Iviuiortality. 355 
 
 Surely it can only have been left behind because 
 there was something in the man not included in the 
 transmutation — something which was not capable 
 of being disintegrated with the particles of matter, 
 and which, because it was incapable of disintegra- 
 tion, was able to preserve unbroken a sense of the 
 changeless amid the mutable. 
 
 Now it has always seemed to us that the pheno- 
 menon here described is the nearest analogy which 
 human consciousness presents to the persistence of 
 force in nature. We have seen that, according to 
 Mr Spencer, there is a force at the basis of the 
 universe which persists unchanged amid all the 
 changes of its manifestations. Here, within the 
 circle of human consciousness, is a state of things 
 precisely analogous, if not absolutely identical. 
 We see an organism whose material constituents 
 are in a constant state of flux, whose elements are 
 every moment undergoing some form of modifica- 
 tion, until at last there remains not one part of the 
 original structure. Yet amidst all this flux there 
 is something which remains permanent — the con- 
 sciousness of identity itself How are we to ac- 
 count for this .'' Shall we account for it by the 
 general doctrine of the persistence of the primal 
 force ? It is both natural and reasonable to do so. 
 But let us remember that in doing so we can no 
 longer look upon the primal force as a mere ab- 
 stract power ; we shall be compelled henceforth to
 
 356 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Ahiv ? 
 
 regard it as a conscious power. That which per- 
 sists here is not an abstraction ; it is a conscious- 
 ness. The value of the persistence in this sphere 
 consists in the fact that it is a persistence of per- 
 sonality. That which continues is a sense or con- 
 sciousness of identity ; and as the identity does not 
 lie in the material environment, it must consist in 
 something which is over and above that environ- 
 ment. The doctrine of the persistence of force 
 has thus proved itself an ally of the doctrine of 
 immortality. 
 
 But if the doctrine of immortality has a relation 
 to the doctrine of the persistence of force, it has, 
 it seems to us, a still more pronounced relation to 
 that other doctrine of Mr Herbert Spencer — the 
 inscrutability of force. Persistence and inscruta- 
 bility are the two known attributes of Mr Spencer's 
 deity. The former, as we have seen, favours the 
 faith in immortality ; let us see what the latter 
 says. We have already shown, in a previous 
 chapter, that agnosticism is not ignorance, but 
 only the sense of ignorance. To know that we 
 know nothing, is already to have reached a fact of 
 knowledge. When a man says with Mr Herbert 
 Spencer that the Power which rules the universe is 
 inscrutable to him, he is not merely saying that he 
 knows nothing about it. He is making a positive 
 and not a negative statement ; he is declaring that 
 the Power which rules the universe has awakened
 
 Evolution and Immortality. 357 
 
 within him a sense of mystery — has caused him to 
 become conscious of a barrier to his own conscious- 
 ness. To use a former illustration — the recogni- 
 tion of a barred gate in the world of intellect is 
 itself a recognition of the fact that we are too large 
 for our environment. The very ability to perceive 
 our imprisonment is a proof that imprisonment is 
 not the natural state of our being — in other words, 
 that there is something within us which already 
 transcends the present limits of our nature. How 
 do we know that there is a Power in the universe 
 which is inscrutable to us t We can only know 
 that fact by being ourselves, to some extent and 
 in some phase of our being, sharers in the same 
 force which constitutes the life of that Power. If 
 man had wanted the sense of sight, he would not 
 only have been ignorant of its existence, but he 
 would have been ignorant of his own ignorance. 
 If man had wanted the sense of God, he would not 
 only have been unaware of the manner of His 
 existence, but he would have been unaware that 
 he himself experienced in this matter any intellec- 
 tual difficulty. To feel that the primal force of 
 the universe is inscrutable, is to be conscious of our 
 own ignorance, — that is to say, it is to be one step 
 removed from absolute ignorance ; it is to know 
 something of God. To know something of God is 
 to have something of God in us. The life which 
 perceives its human limitation has already in some
 
 358 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 sense surmounted its limits ; and it can only have 
 surmounted its limits by having received into some 
 phase of its being a portion of that illimitable 
 force whose presence has created within it a 
 vision of the inscrutable. 
 
 There is, then, some reason to believe that man 
 is to some extent a sharer in the essential nature 
 of the great primal Power. His recognition of that 
 Power's inscrutability is itself an indication that in 
 a certain measure he is possessed of its own force. 
 But the force of that primal Power is persistent — 
 in other words, immortal. If man, therefore, has 
 in him any portion of its being, he has in him to 
 that extent a measure of immortality. If the life 
 by which he perceives his own finitude must itself 
 be an infinite life, it must itself, for the same 
 reason, be an immortal life. The immortality 
 which man does not possess in the centre of his 
 individual being, must still linger in some sphere of 
 the circumference, or at least there must linger a 
 receptivity which shall render possible the impar- 
 tation of immortality as a gift of God. It would 
 seem, also, that so far as immortality is concerned, 
 the gift is to be a universal one. The reason for 
 this assertion is, that the perception of inscruta- 
 bility is universal. If the sense of mystery be the 
 beginning of the sense of God, the sense of God 
 must be universal to man. A man does not escape 
 it by calling himself an agnostic. Agnosticism is
 
 Evolution and Immortality. 359 
 
 itself the culmination of the sense of mystery, and 
 therefore the highest form of the rudimentary sense 
 of God. Agnosticism, alien as it professes to be to 
 the spirit of religion, is yet rooted and grounded in 
 the same principle which has ever given birth to 
 the spirit of religion — the sense of mystery, the 
 vision of the inscrutable in nature. The sense of 
 God, therefore, is universal ; and that which it 
 involves must be universal too — the receptivity of 
 human nature for the indwelling of a force which 
 is persistent and eternal. 
 
 Thus far, then, the modern scientific view of the 
 system of nature is in favour of the doctrine of 
 immortality. It is alleged, however, that the doc- 
 trine of evolution presents us with one or two facts 
 on the other side ; and as no statement of a case 
 can be scientific which does not take account of 
 all the facts, it will now be incumbent on us to 
 consider the points in which the evolutionary 
 system is supposed to militate against the belief 
 in man's future existence. 
 
 The first of these may be called the objection 
 derived from the analogy between the life of the 
 man and the life of the animal. That there is 
 such an analogy is presupposed and demanded 
 by the system of evolution itself That system 
 implies that all parts of creation are somewhere 
 linked to one another, and that, therefore, the life 
 of the man must be joined somewhere to the
 
 360 Caji the Old Faith live zvith the Neiv ? 
 
 animal life. But if it be so, it is asked, what is 
 man's claim to a distinction of superiority over the 
 beast so pronounced as the possession of immor- 
 tality ? If the beast of the field be mortal, why 
 should that life of man which is derived from it be 
 immortal ? Is there any analogy between a form 
 of life that lives for ever and a form of life that 
 perishes within a few years ? and if there be no 
 analogy between them, with what logical consist- 
 ency can it be affirmed that the one has produced 
 the other? Is not the doctrine of evolution at 
 variance with the possibility of any such supposi- 
 tion ? Is it not bound, on its own premisses, to 
 deny that a life which, by nature and in fact, is 
 perishable, can have given birth to a life which 
 contains the susceptibility of an endless duration ? 
 But here, as in so many other cases, there exists 
 a confusion of thought as to what are the premisses 
 of the doctrine of evolution. It is assumed that, 
 according to the doctrine of evolution, the life of 
 the man is derived from the life of the animal. If 
 we take the system of Mr Herbert Spencer as the 
 representative of this doctrine, we shall rather be 
 disposed to state the formula thus : the life of the 
 man is derived throngJi the life of the animal. In 
 the system of Mr Spencer, the being of man, like 
 the being of everything else on the globe, has a 
 double origin ; it has an origin in the earth, and it 
 has an origin in that which transcends the earth.
 
 Evolution and Immortality. 36 r 
 
 Man is indeed the product of evolution, but he is 
 not the product of a single factor of the process. 
 He derives something from the lives and the ele- 
 ments which have preceded him ; he is indebted to 
 the principle of heredity for that part of his being 
 which connects him with the lower creation. But 
 he claims to have a part of his being which is not 
 derived from beneath — that part which suggests to 
 him the receptivity of his nature for immortal life. 
 There is no necessity incumbent on man to deny 
 that this higher phase of his being is, like the lower, 
 the product of evolution ; what he denies is, that 
 it is the product of the same factor as the lower. 
 Knowing, as he does, that the prime agent in the 
 process is just the great inscrutable force itself, he 
 is not startled to find in his own nature some indi- 
 cations that this force has been at work as well as 
 the principle of heredity. When he finds in his 
 nature certain facts and analogies which suggest to 
 him the hope of immortality, his hope will not be 
 converted into despair by remembering that he is 
 the creature of evolution, for he knows that one 
 side of the process of evolution is ever a Divine 
 side — the working of that inscrutable force which 
 persists throughout the universe. He knows that 
 if he shall receive the gift of immortality, he shall 
 receive it only through the impartation of that 
 persistent nature which dwells in the great inscrut- 
 able Power.
 
 362 Can the Old Faith live zvith the New ? 
 
 There is, then, nothing in the doctrine of evo- 
 lution which prevents man from holding that he 
 possesses an immortal life unshared by the beast 
 of the field. Neither, let us add, is there anything 
 in the doctrine of evolution which would prevent 
 him from holding that the gift of immortality 
 which he has been promised will be bestowed also 
 on the lower creatures. What we mean is, that so 
 far as evolution is concerned, a man might scientifi- 
 cally hold either one or the other of these positions. 
 The inscrutable force of the universe is not absent 
 from the life of the animal any more than from the 
 life of the man ; and if any Christian theologian 
 should, like Bishop Butler,^ deem it consistent with 
 his theology to cherish a hope for the immortality 
 of the former, he will meet with no opposition 
 from the evolution principle. The opposition he 
 will meet v/ith, apart from his own special studies, 
 will be derived mainly from the facts of human 
 consciousness, or, to speak more correctly, from 
 the presence of certain facts in human conscious- 
 ness which, so far as observation can extend, 
 appear to be absent from the life of the lower 
 creation. An inquiry into this matter does not 
 fall within our present province ; our purpose is 
 sufficiently satisfied when it is shown that the 
 existence of a link of continuity between the 
 
 ^ Analogy, part i., cliap. i., Oxford edition of his works, 1849, 
 p. 17.
 
 Evolution and Immortality. 363 
 
 animal and the man does not denude the man 
 of his hope of immortality. 
 
 There is, however, another phase of the order of 
 nature in which man appears to be linked to the 
 world of earthly elements more firmly and de- 
 cidedly : we allude to the sphere of embryology. 
 In the former case we had only to do with man as 
 a race ; here we are concerned with man as an 
 individual. There are some who hold the doc- 
 trine of evolution in the interest of materialism, 
 and who labour to expound it as a process by 
 which the higher grows out of the lower. To 
 such the sphere of embryology seems to offer a 
 support and to present a confirmation. They 
 point us to the fact that at the beginning the 
 germ-cell of human life is just the same as any 
 other cell, quite indistinguishable from that of 
 either the animal or the plant. They refer us to 
 the further fact, that in the process of its matura- 
 tion the human foetus passes through a series of 
 progressive gradations, in which the nucleus of its 
 organisation is first formed, and then by successive 
 stages developed. They go on to tell us that these 
 gradations are simply repetitions of the stages of 
 animal life — that the human foetus in its progress 
 towards perfection becomes successively a fish, a 
 reptile, and a bird, and arrives at its state as man 
 only by developing its nature as an animal. The 
 inference intended to be drawn is, that all life is
 
 364 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Neiu ? 
 
 the result of material conditions, and is propor- 
 tionate to the growth of these conditions. The 
 original insignificance of the germ-cell, lifted as 
 it is so little above non-existence, is taken as a 
 proof that we can trace back the beginnings of life 
 almost to a material origin ; while the similarity of 
 the course pursued by the human foetus to the 
 course traversed by its predecessors, is regarded as 
 an infallible testimony that the life of the man 
 and the life of the animal are one. We are asked, 
 finally, to take the case of the individual human 
 fffitus as an analogy to that universal process by 
 which the life of the world at large began and was 
 developed, — to look upon the small beginnings of 
 the one only as a specimen of the insignificant 
 origin of the other, and to see in the progress of 
 the unit from the lower to the higher an indication 
 in miniature of that process by which the principle 
 of universal life has attained its present perfection. 
 Now, so far as this question refers to the relation 
 of the animal to the man, we have already disposed 
 of it, and need not reopen the subject. We have 
 only here to do with it in so far as it concerns the 
 relation of life in general to that which is not living. 
 The doctrine of embryology is thought by the men 
 of this school to favour the notion that the fcetus 
 is developed through purely material conditions, 
 and that it reaches the human state by an ascent 
 from a form of life so low as to be hardly distin-
 
 Evolution and Itnniortality. 365 
 
 guishable from non-living matter. We are then 
 asked to take the human foetus as a miniature 
 specimen of the development of life in general, and 
 to conclude that this, too, is an ascent from the 
 lower to the higher. The result of this process, 
 if pushed to its logical issue, would be the ultimate 
 derivation of life from matter— and therefore the 
 virtual denial of the possibility of an existence 
 beyond death. But is the premiss on which the 
 reasoning is based a sound one? We are not 
 asking whether the facts be true. They are by 
 no means all of them universally admitted ; many 
 regard the gradations of the foetus through the 
 fish, the reptile, and the bird as an extremely 
 fanciful hypothesis. But we intend to assume 
 here that all the facts are true. We intend, further, 
 to take the materialist at his word, and to accept 
 the development of the human foetus as a specimen 
 of the mode in which universal life develops. If 
 the materialist will only abide by the analogy of 
 the individual foetus, he will be driven logically 
 out of his materialism. For what are the lessons 
 of embryology? Is the life of the individual foetus 
 an ascent from the lower to the higher? Yes ; but 
 only after it has first been a descent from the 
 higher to the lower. Say that the human foetus 
 was at one time a bird, at a more remote period 
 a reptile, further back still a fish, and finally, at 
 its beginning, a germ-cell ; does this prove that
 
 366 Can the Old Faith live tvitli the Nezu ? 
 
 the absolute law of evolution is a gradation from 
 the lower to the higher ? Not so ; for in truth the 
 beginning of this life as a foetus was not its begin- 
 ning as a life. If it was once a bird, a reptile, and 
 a fish, it was something else before it was any of 
 these ; it was a portion of the life of man. If, as 
 a foetus, it has ascended from the lowest grade, it 
 has first descended in order to become a foetus. 
 Its rise to the level of the human is not really 
 a rise ; it is simply a resumption of that which was 
 its original rank, and from which it has temporarily 
 descended. If the child, when it reaches the period 
 of consciousness, exhibits the traces of an animal 
 heredity, it exhibits also the traces of a heredity 
 which is not animal, of a parentage which is earlier 
 than the animal, and lies behind the stages of foetal 
 development ; it is because its ultimate derivation 
 is from a human source that its most marked char- 
 acteristic is the possession of a human nature. 
 
 The conclusion, then, from the doctrine of embry- 
 ology, is, that the evolution of human life in the 
 individual is a twofold process ; that it is first a 
 descent from a higher stage to a lower, and then 
 an ascent from that lower stage back to the level 
 from which it came. Now if we transfer this 
 analogy to the evolution of life in the world at 
 large, we shall find that it has brought us to a 
 view of things which, while perfectly in accordance 
 with theism, is not incompatible with the doctrine
 
 Evolution and Immortality. Ti^y 
 
 of Mr Spencer. The evolution of life in the world 
 exhibits, in the first instance, a gradation from the 
 lower to the higher. The geological record tells 
 us that the earthly course of the stream of life is 
 shallow at its beginning, and wider as it flows. 
 Each period exhibits an increased fulness of being, 
 each stage reveals a new order of vital develop- 
 ment. But then the geological record cannot give, 
 and does not profess to give, the real beginning 
 of the process. The real beginning of the process, 
 in the view of Mr Herbert Spencer, lies in a mani- 
 festation of the inscrutable force of the universe ; 
 in the view of the theist, it lies in an impartation 
 of the life of God. These two doctrines in this 
 respect are one ; they both distinctly imply that 
 the original course of life was a descent from the 
 higher to the lower. Alike in the system of the 
 theist and in the system of Mr Spencer, the series 
 of changes which we designate by the name of life 
 derives its origin from a source which transcends 
 perception. It is implied, as we have seen, in the 
 doctrine of biogenesis itself, that if the present law 
 of physical nature has possessed that immutability 
 which we generally claim for law, life could have 
 had no beginning. It follows that its earthly be- 
 ginnings are not its source, and that its original 
 value cannot be measured by its first manifesta- 
 tions in the system of evolution. In the system 
 of evolution, it is but a foetus developing by slow
 
 368 Can the Old FaiiJi live zvith the Neiu ? 
 
 stages towards perfection ; and, like the individual 
 foetus, it is to all appearance only striving to regain 
 a level of being from which it has been forced to 
 descend. 
 
 Thus far, then, we find nothing in the system of 
 nature which contradicts man's primitive hope of 
 immortality. Neither in the existence of the links 
 which are supposed to bind the man to the animal, 
 nor in that law of embryology which is supposed 
 to trace his origin from elements which he pos- 
 sesses in common with the dust of the ground, is 
 there to be found any corroboration of the senti- 
 ment that the doctrine of evolution is opposed to 
 the doctrine of immortality. There is, however, in 
 connection with this question of embryology, an- 
 other fact which has been thought to militate 
 against the primitive belief. It is well known that 
 in the process of procreation there is a parsimony 
 in the use of materials. Out of many seeds the 
 many are rejected, and the choice generally falls 
 upon the one. There is, in truth, a system of 
 election in nature — a system in which one seed 
 is singled out from all its compeers, and selected 
 to carry on alone the further development of that 
 order into which it has come. And this has been 
 supposed to indicate a waste of being. It has been 
 thought that the rejection of so many seeds of inci- 
 pient life is a proof that life is not an object of care 
 to nature. It has been supposed, in fact, to point
 
 Evolution and hnmortality. 369 
 
 to an actual waste of vital being as the law on 
 which the process of evolution moves ; and it is 
 asked whether, in the light of such a law, we can 
 still adhere to the conclusion that there is no in- 
 compatibility between the doctrine of evolution 
 and the doctrine of immortality. 
 
 But is there a proof here of the actual waste of 
 being ? There is, as we have said, the evidence of 
 a system of election — and in this the doctrine of 
 evolution is in harmony with the whole course of 
 human history. But election is not a waste of 
 being ; it is simply the choosing of certain seeds 
 for a particular purpose, and the leaving of the 
 others unemployed for this purpose. We are not 
 warranted to conclude more from the procreative 
 system of nature than that the being of the remain- 
 ing seeds has not been appropriated in a particular 
 direction ; it has been left out of account in the 
 achievement of a certain end, but it does not there- 
 fore follow that it has been wasted. On the con- 
 trary, the doctrine of the persistence of force seems 
 to prove conclusively that nothing has been wasted. 
 If the doctrine of the persistence of force be true, 
 it follows that there has been no diminution in the 
 sum of universal being, that every atom which ever 
 existed within the universe exists within it still, 
 that every force which ever operated in nature 
 continues in some form to operate in nature still. 
 If it be so, there can be no waste of generic being, 
 2 A
 
 3/0 Can the Old Faith live zvith the New ? 
 
 and in the case of these incipient seeds the generic 
 being is the only thing worth preserving. There is 
 no individuality sufficiently strong to be deplored 
 in its loss ; the valuable element is just that incip- 
 ient life which may develop into other individual 
 forms, and which we have every reason to believe 
 does, after the disintegration of the seed, really so 
 develop. If the failure of any seed to carry on the 
 present purpose of nature be a proof of the waste 
 of being, we shall be bound to conclude that there 
 is a waste of iiniversal being ; for, so far as the 
 present system of nature is concerned, every seed 
 ultimately fails and dies. Man's hope of immor- 
 tality is not derived from the persistence of the 
 individual seeds of being in the present order of 
 things ; it is derived from his belief that the pres- 
 ent order of things is not the final order, and that 
 beyond the purpose of physical nature there is a 
 purpose which shapes the destiny of universal life. 
 And this leads us to another aspect in which the 
 doctrine of evolution has seemed to interpose a 
 barrier to the doctrine of immortality. It is an 
 aspect which is in some respects the exact converse 
 of the previous view. In the previous view the 
 destruction of individual seeds is supposed to be 
 a waste of being ; in the view which we are now 
 about to consider, the waste consists in the tem- 
 porary preservation of these seeds. The aim of 
 the system of evolution is held to be the annihi-
 
 Evolution and Ivivwrtality. 371 
 
 lation of the individual. More and more as the 
 drama of Hfe develops, is it said to be revealed that 
 man is but the fragment of a mighty whole. The 
 nothingness of the individual is declared to be a 
 truth that grows in prominence in proportion to 
 the advance of scientific knowledge, and the duty 
 of man is said to be to yield up his own petty life 
 to the great life of the universe. This is the origin 
 of that doctrine which in modern times has become 
 increasingly popular, — that the only future state 
 which man ought to look for is the state called 
 corporate immortality — the state in which the indi- 
 vidual loses his individuality, and is submerged in 
 the life of the whole. He himself as a personal 
 being will not live, but his influence shall. He 
 shall live in the hearts of those whom he has left 
 behind, shall live in the lives he has inspired, in 
 the memories he has endeared, in the imaginations 
 he has kindled, in the thoughts he has stimulated. 
 This, we are told, is a far nobler view of immortal- 
 ity than the search for an individual future, a view 
 which lifts the mind out of its own selfishness, and 
 ushers it into the glorious liberty of the life that 
 has ceased to regard itself. In reaching this belief, 
 we have reached the highest motive to philan- 
 thropy, the purest stimulus to duty, the loftiest 
 incentive to benevolence, and the most imperish- 
 able source of personal blessedness. 
 
 Now we admit that the doctrine of evolution
 
 'i^']2 Can the Old Faith live ivitJi the New ? 
 
 has increasingly revealed the organic unity of the 
 universe, has increasingly brought to view the fact 
 that the individual man is only a fragment of the 
 whole. We admit, moreover, that it is the duty of 
 the individual man above all things to realise this 
 fact, to lose sight of his own individuality in the 
 recognition of that great corporate community of 
 which he forms but a single member. We hold, 
 further, that the inculcation of this duty has been 
 the special glory of Christianity considered as a 
 moral system, that it was the religion of Christ 
 and not the philosophy of Auguste Comte which 
 first said, " He that loveth his life shall lose it." 
 In that aphorism Christianity itself declared that 
 exclusive individual contemplation constituted a 
 waste of being. Yet, strange to say, it is just here 
 that Christianity has vindicated the claims of the 
 individual. Why does it hold that exclusive self- 
 contemplation is a waste of being ? Simply because 
 it holds that exclusive self- contemplation is a 
 weakening of the individual, that the love of life is 
 the loss of life. Christianity, like Comtism, would 
 teach men to contemplate the welfare of that uni- 
 versal body of which each is but a member, but it 
 would teach them that lesson by a precisely oppo- 
 site method. Comtism would say that the doctrine 
 of individual immortality must be sacrificed that 
 a man may cease to live for himself; Christianity 
 says, on the other hand, that it is only by ceasing
 
 Evolution and Imnwrtality. 373 
 
 to live for himself that a man can ever realise the 
 strength of his own personality and the ground 
 of his own immortal hope. And experience has 
 amply verified this Christian doctrine. All life 
 has proved, all consciousness has testified, that the 
 individual only really begins to live when he lives 
 in the race. It is in the recognition of the truth of 
 our membership in a corporate body that each of 
 us rises into a sense of personal dignity, into a per- 
 ception of individual power. As long as the life 
 feels itself to be a unit separated from other lives, 
 it must inevitably feel itself to be personally weak 
 and insignificant ; its personal strength only comes 
 when its enthusiasm comes, and its enthusiasm 
 only comes when it is lifted out of itself. On 
 this ground also, therefore, we hold that the 
 doctrine of evolution has rendered service to the 
 doctrine of immortality. In opening up to man 
 a view of his individual fragmentariness, it has 
 revealed to him the best method in which his 
 fragmentariness can be redeemed. In teaching 
 him to lose sight of himself, it has caused him to 
 find himself; in awakening him to the interests of 
 that mighty whole of which his life forms a part, 
 it has given to that life itself a strength which it 
 knew not before. 
 
 We have now reviewed the main points in which 
 the modern doctrine of evolution seems to come 
 into contact with man's primitive hope of immor-
 
 374 Can the Old Faith live with the Nczv ? 
 
 tality. It will be manifest that, when all has been 
 said, it is only the fringe of the subject that has 
 really been touched, that really can be touched, by 
 the doctrine of evolution. There are a multitude 
 of questions remaining behind to which that doc- 
 trine can give no answer, either affirmative or 
 negative. What is the nature of the soul's future .-' 
 what is to be the mode of the soul's existence .-' 
 what is the prospective region of the soul's habita- 
 tion ? How many are they whose immortality shall 
 be an immortality of Divine fulness ? These are 
 questions which in all ages have pressed for an 
 answer, but which can receive no possible answer 
 from the system of evolution. It is not possible 
 that a system which is expressly concerned with 
 the laws of time shall be able to throw light upon 
 a state which transcends time. We must be con- 
 tent, therefore, to take from the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion that which it lies within its province to give, 
 and to leave to the researches of the theologian 
 the questions whose solution is beyond the range 
 of science. 
 
 One thing, indeed, we may say. The system of 
 nature agrees with the system of revelation in pre- 
 senting us with two different modes of estimating 
 the value of life. In the field of science and in the 
 field of revelation alike, we have two measurements 
 of life — a measurement according to its duration, 
 and a measurement according to its intensity.
 
 Evolution and Iviniortality. 375 
 
 There are lives which last longer than others, and 
 there are lives which, without reference to the period 
 of their lasting, are fuller than others, more rich in 
 the present amount of their being. These distinc- 
 tions, which we meet on the very face of nature, 
 have been taken up and strongly emphasised by 
 the page of revelation. It cannot be denied that 
 the Bible recognises a twofold immortality — an 
 immortality which consists in the uninterrupted 
 duration of years, and an immortality which is 
 constituted by the fulness of present life. In the 
 one case it measures existence by its length, in the 
 other it measures it by its largeness. The first of 
 these immortalities it seems to recognise as some- 
 thing which, by Divine gift, has been made natural 
 to man ; the second it uniformly regards as some- 
 thing which can only be reached by man as the 
 result of hard and strenuous struggle. This second 
 order of immortality is what the Bible calls dis- 
 tinctively eternal life. It means by that phrase 
 something different from mere duration, for it 
 speaks of it as something which may be already 
 possessed by man — " He that hath the Son Jiath 
 eternal life." This second and higher immortality 
 is, in truth, a thing identical with the indwelling of 
 the Divine Spirit in the soul. It is not something 
 which is to be readied by the indwelling of that 
 Spirit ; it is itself the life of the Spirit, and is 
 reached in the first and faintest experience of that
 
 I 
 
 376 Can the Old Faith live with the New ? 
 
 life. The immortality which in the New Testa- 
 ment is designated eternal life, is, in the view of 
 the New Testament, nothing less than the life of 
 the Eternal, the personal presence of that primal 
 force which lies at the basis of all things. The 
 man who arrives at this possession is said to be 
 immortal no longer by the mere gift of a Supreme 
 Will who suffers him to live, but by the dwelling 
 of the Divine nature within himself, making his 
 immortality the very life of God — " Because I live, 
 ye shall live also." And all this, be it remembered, 
 is unopposed by any law of physical science, un- 
 contradicted by any testimony of evolution. It is 
 brought about by no leap or paroxysm ; it involves 
 no break in the evolutionary chain. It is effected 
 by a power which is itself recognised as the main 
 agent in the process of development — that primal 
 force of the universe which is everywhere persistent 
 and immortal.
 
 Conclusion. 377 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 We have now brought to an end the subject of 
 this inquiry. We have taken up one by one those 
 points in which the modern doctrine of evolution 
 has seemed to come into contact with the revela- 
 tions of the old faith, and we have endeavoured 
 impartially to consider whether the contact has 
 been one of collision or one of union. As the 
 result of our examination, we are now prepared to 
 come to a definite conclusion. We have found 
 that the old faith caii live with the new. Without 
 entering into the evidence for the doctrine of evolu- 
 tion, without considering to what extent its truth 
 has been already established, or to what extent it 
 still remains in abeyance, it must even now be 
 abundantly evident that, should the doctrine of 
 evolution be established, Christianity will not die. 
 There are some who seem to regard it as now on 
 its trial, awaiting the testimony of the witnesses 
 for evolution, and indebted for its present con-
 
 3/8 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezu ? 
 
 tinuance to the fact that the examination of these 
 witnesses has not yet been concluded. It would, 
 indeed, be more correct to say, that the fact of this 
 examination not having been yet concluded is the 
 only present hindrance to the continuance of Chris- 
 tianity. The moment that examination has been 
 concluded, and the moment the verdict has been 
 given on the one side or on the other, it is quite 
 safe to say that there shall be an end of that 
 religious unsettledness which has at present dis- 
 organised the old order of things. If the verdict 
 be unfavourable to evolution, things will remain 
 as they were ; if the verdict be in favour of the 
 new science, we have endeavoured to show that 
 the new wine will fit the old bottles. 
 
 For, in truth, it is a fact which is testified by all 
 experience, that the times of the greatest religious 
 uncertainty have been the times of transition 
 between the old and the new. The dangerous 
 period to an old faith is its season of suspense — 
 the period when it is assailed by what promises 
 to be a destructive force, without having yet re- 
 ceived the power to measure the extent of its 
 destructiveness. Just as in the life of the indi- 
 vidual the feeling of suspense tends to enervate 
 the energies, so in the life of the community the 
 necessity to suspend the judgment tends to weaken 
 the force of religion. It is on this ground that we 
 think the present the true period for an inquiry
 
 Conclusion. 379 
 
 into the relations of evolution and revelation. 
 There are many who say it will be time enough 
 to inquire into that relation when evolution itself 
 is demonstrated to be the law of the universe. 
 That will be far too late if men are now taught 
 to believe that the proof of evolution would be 
 the destruction of Christianity. With such a 
 belief in their minds, the very possibility that 
 the doctrine may be true is bound to exercise 
 a weakening influence over the religious senti- 
 ments of the past. How is this weakening 
 influence to be avoided ? No amount of re- 
 search would probably be sufficient to solve the 
 question itself within the lifetime of the present 
 generation, and it is with the lifetime of the pres- 
 ent generation that we are here purely concerned. 
 Is there any other method besides the actual 
 solving of the question that could possibly set 
 at rest the religious consciousness ? There is one, 
 and only one. If it can be shown that the appli- 
 cation of the new force to Christianity would not 
 be destructive — if it could be made clear to the 
 minds of men that the establishment of the doc- 
 trine of evolution would have no necessary tendency 
 to undermine the old faith, — the suspense of the 
 religious world would be virtually at an end. Sus- 
 pense there would still be, but it would no longer 
 be religious suspense ; it would be simply the 
 waiting which we practise day by day in rela-
 
 3 So Ca7i the Old Faith live with the Neiv ? 
 
 tion to the secular events of life, and which we 
 are able to bear without religious injury, just 
 from the conviction that the issue will not affect 
 religion. 
 
 We have expressed our opinion that in the event 
 of the doctrine of evolution becoming an estab- 
 lished law of nature, Christianity will not die. We 
 believe that it will have no difficulty whatever in 
 adapting itself, should it be necessary, to such a 
 view of nature as Mr Herbert Spencer proposes ; 
 and we have endeavoured in the preceding pages 
 to show what are the grounds on which we hold 
 this belief There is yet one other aspect of the 
 subject at which we desire to glance ere we close. 
 If the doctrine of evolution should be proved to be 
 the law of the universe, Christianity will occupy 
 towards it a closer relationship than that of mere 
 adaptation ; it will itself take its place as one of 
 the main forces in the achievement of the process. 
 Now we wish to point out that if Christianity 
 should come to be regarded as from the human 
 and historical side one of the great evolutionary 
 forces, it will thereby receive a scientific vindica- 
 tion of two most important claims which it has 
 itself put forth. 
 
 The first of these claims put forth by Christianity 
 is the claim to be regarded as an original law of 
 the universe. Throughout the New Testament 
 I'^pistles there is a constant reiteration of the 
 statement that this religion, although a new
 
 Conchision. 381 
 
 manifestation to the world, is not a new principle 
 in nature. Paul speaks of it as " the mystery 
 which hath been hid from ages and from genera- 
 tions, but now is made manifest." What is this 
 but to say that the Christian principle existed 
 in the universe before it existed in the heart of 
 man } What is the reason that the New Testa- 
 ment writers lay such constant stress on the 
 statement that the Christian manifestation was 
 foreordained .'' It is clearly to indicate the fact 
 that they regard it as an absolute law of the 
 universe. They want to emphasise their persua- 
 sion that they do not look upon the new religion 
 as new in any other sense than to man ; that they 
 do not consider it as a miracle in the sense of being 
 a change in the counsels of God ; that they do not 
 recognise it as a leap, or break, or paroxysm in 
 that universal order which God established before 
 the foundation of the world. Now this claim of 
 Christianity, so far from being refuted, would be 
 scientifically vindicated by the establishment of the 
 doctrine of evolution. Christianity would then be 
 seen to have a place in the system of nature as 
 necessary as the law of gravitation. It would no 
 longer be possible to regard it as an accident in 
 the history of the world ; it would appear to be 
 what it really is, an essential element in the history 
 of the world. It would take its place, even from a 
 purely historical standpoint, as one of the laws of 
 nature which could not be eliminated from nature
 
 382 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 without destroying the system of the universe itself. 
 From a scientific point of view the same vision 
 would be gained which was beheld by the apostle 
 from a purely theological standpoint — the vision of 
 a Christianity coexistent with the very being of God. 
 The second claim put forth by Christianity is 
 the right to the empire of the world. It aspires to 
 nothing less than an absolute dominion. It de- 
 clares its mission to be nothing short of the subju- 
 gation of all things. And what is more remarkable 
 still, it makes that claim at the very beginning of 
 its career, at the time when its force seemed weak 
 in comparison with the forces of the world. Chris- 
 tianity's prophecy of its own greatness first came 
 to the ears of men as the wildest of paradoxes. 
 It was not possible that it should have appeared 
 in any other light than that of a paradox. That a 
 force which had just begun to manifest itself in the 
 world, whose physical resources were weak, and 
 whose inherent bias was the reverse of aggressive, 
 should yet confidently declare that it would ulti- 
 mately prove the survivor over the long-established 
 and powerful forces of the animal nature, was surely 
 a fact which could excite nothing but marvel. If 
 the men of that day had been acquainted with the 
 doctrine of evolution, they would certainly have 
 affirmed that the claim put forth by Christianity 
 was at variance with that law of survival which had 
 been established in the system of nature.
 
 Conclusion. 383 
 
 But a very different verdict would be given by 
 the men of the nineteenth century if the doctrine 
 of evolution were to be recognised as absolute law. 
 So far from impugning the right of Christianity to 
 universal dominion, the doctrine of evolution would 
 vindicate and explain its right. Evolution may 
 itself be regarded in one aspect as the history of 
 the process of survival — the history of the process 
 by which some are fit to live and some are bound 
 to die. Now what is the history of this process as 
 revealed by the facts of the world ? The survival 
 of the fittest in the sphere of evolution does not 
 mean the survival of one and the same quality ; on 
 the contrary, the fittest is a relative term — that 
 which is fit for life to-day may be unfit to-morrow. 
 The history of evolution reveals that the things 
 which were originally weak are the things which 
 become ultimately the survivors in the strife. At 
 first the physically strongest are the fittest for 
 existence, and therefore to them exclusively does 
 existence at first belong. Speaking generally, we 
 may say that there have been three great acts in 
 the evolutionary drama. The first is the period in 
 which the physical element dominated over all 
 beside — when the race was to the swift and the 
 battle to the strong. The second is the period in 
 which there appeared upon the field an antagonist 
 to the physical element, and in which a doubtful 
 warfare was waged between the spirit and the flesh.
 
 384 Can the Old Faith live with the Nezv ? 
 
 The third is the period in which the battle begins 
 to turn in favour of the spirit, and the power which 
 originally had been the strongest is compelled to 
 yield its empire. The first age was the history of 
 the animal world, the second was the history of the 
 struggle between the animal and the human, the 
 third is the history of that process by which the 
 human is gradually obtaining an empire over the 
 animal. Perhaps it may be thought premature to 
 have introduced such a third period at all. We 
 may be asked, Where is the evidence for this new 
 principle of survival ? And indeed, if we look 
 merely at the outward facts, it will be very difficult 
 to prove that there has really been a reversal in 
 the balance of power. There are times when it 
 would almost seem as if the flesh had still the 
 predominance over the spirit, and as if the survival 
 of the fittest were still equivalent to the survival 
 of the strongest. But the observation of outward 
 fact is not here the true standard of measurement. 
 If we would ask in what respect the third period 
 differs from the second, we must seek the answer 
 in a change of moral ideal. What distinguishes 
 the third period from the second is a new standard 
 of what constitutes the heroic. In the former age 
 the great opponent of the spiritual element was 
 not so much the animal life as the admiration for 
 the animal life — the belief that the display of 
 physical strength was the display of the highest
 
 Conclusion. 385 
 
 heroism. The latest age of evolution has reversed 
 this judgment ; and in reversing it, it has already 
 potentially given the victory to the spirit. There 
 has come into the world a new ideal of heroism, — 
 an ideal which consists, not in self-aggrandisement, 
 but in self-surrender for the sake of others ; not in 
 the abundance of the things a man possesses, but 
 in the abundance of the things he can bestow. 
 There is no man who does not in his heart believe 
 that the life of sacrifice for the universal good is 
 nobler than the life of struggle for individual gain, 
 more like a hero, more worthy of a human soul. 
 This state of mind is a transformation in the belief 
 of the world, and it is a transformation which 
 virtually amounts to the selection of a new order 
 of being on which to bestow the gift of survival. 
 
 Now what has effected this transformation ? 
 There does not seem to be any natural road by 
 which the admiration for mere physical strength 
 could have developed into the admiration for a 
 strength which is not physical, but sacrificial of 
 the physical. Nor, in point of fact, from the record 
 of merely secular history can we discover any place 
 or time in which the transition began to be made. 
 A spectator standing at the close of the second 
 period would have declared with apparent justice 
 that the physical forces were winning the battle ; 
 the strongest were never so near becoming the 
 fittest as in the first century of Roman imperialism. 
 
 2 B
 
 386 Can the Old Faith live zvith the Nezv ? 
 
 But if the same spectator had been permitted to 
 fall asleep for a few centuries, and then to awake 
 and take another survey of the world, he would 
 certainly have found that the balance of victory 
 had inclined to the other side, and had inclined 
 in such a way as to render the ultimate result no 
 longer doubtful. He would have found the change 
 quite unaccountable from the standpoint of what 
 is called purely secular history. He would only 
 be able to recognise two facts — that when he had 
 left the field the battle had been almost won by 
 the forces called physical, and that now when he 
 had returned he found the field virtually in the 
 possession of the spiritual powers of humanity. 
 It would be clear to him, as it is clear to us, that 
 between these two facts something must have in- 
 tervened. We know what that something was ; it 
 was Christianity — that new principle of life which 
 made all things new. But let us understand what 
 this knowledge amounts to. It amounts to nothing 
 less than this, that Christianity has vindicated the 
 order of nature, has explained a fact in that order 
 which without its presence would be inexplicable. 
 It has shown us how it is that a transition has 
 taken place between two opposite forms of culture, 
 — how it is that what was once the survivor in the 
 system of evolution has given place to the life of 
 a contrary principle, and become subordinate to a 
 power of which it was originally the inferior. And
 
 Conclusion. 387 
 
 just because Christianity has here furnished a 
 scientific explanation of a fact of Hfe wliicli would 
 be otherwise beyond science, its own position in 
 the world has been itself scientifically vindicated. 
 The establishment of the doctrine of evolution 
 would not destroy its claim to empire, nor con- 
 tradict its prophecy of dominion. The doctrine 
 of evolution, if established as a universal law, 
 would require to embrace Christianity as one of 
 its main factors, and to recognise in it the most 
 permanent force in the world. The only effect 
 which the universal acceptance of evolution would 
 produce upon the Christian claim to empire would 
 be to rest upon a basis of science what has hith- 
 erto reposed only on a system of faith. 
 
 It cannot be denied, indeed, that if the evolu- 
 tionary principle be true that measures the fitness 
 of things for this world by their power of survival, 
 Christianity is of all others best suited to the heart 
 of man. Christianity has been the most surviving 
 force that has ever been manifested in this world 
 In one sense, indeed, all forces are surviving, but 
 they do not keep their original forms : Christianity 
 in this respect has been exceptional. It may seem 
 to some as if the assertion were premature. We 
 may be reminded that the Christian religion is not 
 yet two thousand years old, and that there are 
 systems both of faith and evolution which have 
 far exceeded this term of duration. We may be
 
 388 Can the Old Faith live zvitJi the Neiv ? 
 
 reminded, on the one hand, that the duration of 
 that animal period in which the law of fitness 
 coincided with the law of strength was so immense 
 that it cannot be calculated by history ; and on 
 the other hand, that within the period of history 
 itself the religions called Brahmanism, Buddhism, 
 and Confucianism have far surpassed in longevity 
 the number of years which Christianity has yet 
 lived. All this is true, and yet none of these facts 
 touches the question in hand. For the truth is, 
 that Christianity itself has revealed to the world 
 a new and a more infallible method of measuring 
 that power of survival which resides in any creature 
 or in any system. It has taught us that the most 
 accurate mode of measurement is not that which 
 estimates the strength of an object by the number 
 of years it has endured, but that which computes 
 its power of survival by the number and variety 
 of the changes through which it has persisted. 
 Measured by this standard, there can be no ques- 
 tion as to whom the palm belongs. The duration 
 of the principle of physical strength as the stand- 
 ard of survival extended, indeed, over an immense 
 period, but it extended over the animal nature — 
 that phase of life which exhibits the least tend- 
 ency to variation. The religions of Brahmanism, 
 Buddhism, and Confucianism can, indeed, point to 
 a length of years which Christianity has not yet 
 enjoyed ; but these religions belong to the East —
 
 Conclusion. 389 
 
 that phase of human Hfe which has been least 
 Hable to change. Christianity belongs not only 
 to humanity, but to that region of humanity which, 
 above all others, has exhibited the greatest tendency 
 to progress and development. India and China 
 have in themselves remained almost stagnant for 
 centuries ; what changes they have exhibited have 
 been for the most part the result of foreign innova- 
 tion. In such a sphere it is easy for any system 
 which has been once established to stand. If the 
 minds of men in any region of the world have seen 
 reason to adopt any system of belief, and if in that 
 region the minds of men are characteristically stag- 
 nant and impassive, there is no reason in the nature 
 of things why the belief, once adopted, should not 
 be for ever perpetuated. It is always more natural 
 in this case that a system should survive than that 
 it should perish : the fact of its perishing would 
 prove inordinate weakness ; but the fact of its 
 survival does not prove inordinate strength. The 
 duration of Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Confu- 
 cianism is not the highest test of fitness for the 
 world, because it is not the preservation of a 
 changeless essence in opposition to changeful cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 But when we come to Christianity, we find an 
 entire reversal of the case. Christianity is the 
 religion of the West ; and to be changeless in the 
 West is to afford an evidence of the persistence
 
 390 Can the Old Faith live ivith the New ? 
 
 of force which cannot be estimated by any mere 
 terms of duration. The surviving strength of 
 Christianity does not consist in the fact that it 
 has existed in a region of the world for eighteen 
 hundred years, but in the fact that during these 
 eighteen hundred years the region where it has 
 existed has been undergoing a constant series of 
 changes. Tlie persistence of Christianity in West- 
 ern Europe has been analogous to the persistence 
 of consciousness in the individual life. We have 
 seen how in the individual life that mj'sterious 
 force called the sense of identity has persisted, in 
 spite of transmutations, throughout the whole envi- 
 ronment of man's being. So has it been with the 
 religion of Christ in the world. Again and again 
 has its environment been wholly changed and 
 replaced by something new, yet through all the 
 vicissitudes of circumstances the essence of the 
 religion has remained the same. It has expe- 
 rienced the most diverse, the most conflicting 
 fortunes. It has passed through a stage of per- 
 secution ; it has undergone a period of political 
 subordination ; it has itself occupied the throne 
 of universal dominion ; it has been successively in 
 alliance and at variance with the scientific creeds 
 of men ; it has seen an entire .s)'stem of astronomy 
 swept away to make room for another and a con- 
 trary system : yet, amid all these changes, it has 
 continued itself essentially unaltered. We say
 
 Conclusion, 391 
 
 essentially. Its intellectual form has indeed been 
 modified in accordance with the needs of each 
 respective age, but the intellectual form of Chris- 
 tianity is not its essence. Its essence is the belief 
 in the power of the Cross — the belief in the sur- 
 vival of that which is the opposite of selfishness 
 and the crucifier of the selfish man. In no age 
 has this feature of Christianity failed to be recog- 
 nised as its distinctive and abiding feature, and in 
 the persistence of that recognition has consisted the 
 permanence of the faith. It is on this ground that 
 we must pronounce the religion of Christ the most 
 persistent of all the forces which have been yet 
 manifested to man ; nor does there seem to be any 
 reason in the nature of things why it should cease 
 to persist in the future. One thing at least is clear, 
 that this persistence will not be destroyed by the 
 establishment of the doctrine of evolution, for the 
 doctrine of evolution itself will add but another 
 voice to these many testimonies which have vindi- 
 cated for Christianity a place as the light and life 
 of men. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.
 
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