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can theology free itself from the air of timidity and half-hearted confidence in its own foundations which so often seems to characterize it. 66 In proportion as faith is sincere," it has been said, "philosophy will be fearless." It is not assumed that a perfect hypothesis of theistic or Christian evolution can be formulated at once. Any such scheme will be full of imperfections. The doctrine of evolution itself is, in the view of some of its most distinguished advocates, only outlined as yet. "I am quite sure," says Professor Le Conte, "that the most fundamental factors (of evolution) are still unknown; that there are more and yet greater factors than are yet dreamed of in our philosophy. But evolution of some kind and according to some law which we yet imperfectly understand, evolution affecting alike every realm of nature, a universal law of evolution, is, I believe, a fact which is rapidly approaching recognition."

Theology has often been mistaken in the past. It can better afford to be mistaken in the future than, through fear of making mistakes, to remain inactive. God has not given us the knowledge of himself in its completeness, any more than He has given us complete knowledge in any other department. It is our duty to follow on wherever He leads the way, less afraid of stumbling than of holding back when He beckons us forward. It is in this spirit that I will venture to call attention to some aspects of evolution as related to theology, hoping thereby to aid in clearing the way for the formation of a Christian theory of evolution.

I must at this point assume the position that evolution has done no more toward explaining the mysterious power that underlies nature than the Copernican theory of astronomy has done. The one, as the other, leaves the question of efficient cause just where it found it. The scientific theory of evolution does not claim to disclose the origin of life. Darwinism does not claim this. Nor does it claim that natural selection is ever the originating cause of variation. That a contrary impression has been produced is not to be wondered at. For while Mr. Darwin admits the existence of a causative power lying behind phenomena, to which the initial impulse must be attributed, he gives no prominence to this power. The preoccupation of his mind with the explainable part permits him to no more than glance at the unexplained. In the former he is interested, in the latter he is not. Evolution, therefore, presents itself in the works of Mr. Darwin in an utterly one-sided aspect. The explained and the explainable seem to occupy almost the whole field; and though, in a

general way, any amount of mystery is granted, the impression is made at every step that far more is accounted for than has been, or ever can be, accounted for by physical science.

But to the Christian philosopher, that part of evolution which ever eludes the investigation of the naturalist is by far the most important, as well as the most interesting; for from this direction flows the creative power. This unexplained part is, in fact, the positive part of evolution. "To speak technically," says Mr. J. J. Murphy, "evolution is differentiation." So, also, Mr. Huxley, "If I affirm that species have been evolved by variation, including under this head hereditary transmission (a natural process, the laws of which are for the most part unknown), aided by the subordinate action of natural selection, it seems to me that I enunciate a proposition which constitutes the very pith and marrow of the first edition of the origin of species."2 Now, differentiation, or variation, is just that part of evolution which, while it proceeds from a power of which natural science gives no account, at the same time originates everything. "In each variation," says Dr. Gray, "lies hidden the mystery of a beginning." Natural selection, on the contrary, originates nothing. It is a destructive, not a creative, principle. If we must idealize it as a positive force, we must think of it not as the preserver of the fittest, but as the destroyer that follows ever in the wake of creation and devours the failures, the scavenger of creation, that takes out of the way forms which are not fit to live and reproduce themselves.

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It is possible, nay, we may say it is probable, that some part of the process by which variation is produced will be explained to us. In the words of the last mentioned writer, "We are not to suppose that natural agencies cease just where we fail to make them out." "When we find out something, as we may hope to do, we only resolve a before unexplained phenomenon into two factors, one of them a now ascertained natural process, the other a something which still eludes our search." 3 It is this "something which still eludes our search" that is always the representative of the efficient power, not the efficient power itself, but the expression of it to our minds, till science advances to some new form of the unknown lying farther back. With this understanding of evolution, therefore, as simply the unveiling of a part of the process by which the positive and creative principle of variation attains 1 Habit and Intelligence, p. 47.

2 Critiques and Addresses, pp. 298, 299.
8 Natural Science and Religion, p. 75.

its ends, and with the thought continually in mind that the discov ery of how phenomena come to pass, affords no presumption whatever against the belief that God is the efficient cause and constant mover of all things, I will venture to call attention to some of those points at which theology has, without reason, been assumed to have a controversy with evolution.

First, then, theology has no controversy with evolution because of the hypothesis that man has descended from the lower animals. The grounds of hostility to this idea on the part of theistic writers may be ranged under two heads. First, that to trace man to such an origin lowers him in the scale of being; and second, that it conflicts with the scriptural account of his creation. The first objection derives its force almost wholly from the one-sided view of evolution to which I have already adverted. The imagination, while dwelling on the unwelcome thought of consanguinity, is so preoccupied as almost to leave out of its conception the important element of differentiation. If man is descended from a creature of a lower order, it somehow seems equivalent to saying that he is himself of a far lower order than he had supposed. If, to state the popular conception of man's lineage, he is descended from an ape, it follows that he is still only a modified and highly developed ape. Even Professor St. George Mivart allows himself to speak of "Darwin's hypothesis of man's essential bestiality." But if the attention can be turned away from the idea of heredity, as known to us in ordinary descent from human ancestors, and concentrated upon the idea of variation as a condition of the descent of one species from another, the prejudice may be dispelled. As I have already observed, the tendency of Darwinism has been to obscure the importance of the creative factor in evolution. It is for theology to rectify this distortion, and represent evolution in its true light as an hypothesis which, while it makes the whole world akin, does not in any way diminish the differences which exist between the various orders of created things. I do not mean to say that theology has any new ground to break in this direction, or that a particular emphasis should be given to one aspect of evolution purely in the interests of religion. This emphasis is required no less by science than by theology; and to secure it we have only to bring to the front the later and clearer statements of evolution made by leaders of scientific thought, who, at the same time, labor under no suspicion of a theological bias.

The fact that the word evolution does not describe the modern doctrine, but one historically opposed to it, should be more widely

known. The popular conception of the matter is nearly identical with the abandoned theory which contemplated simply a process of enlarging and unfolding, the expansion of that which was invisible into visibility. The theory of Darwin and other modern evolutionists, on the contrary, is more properly called epigenesis; a word which signifies that the process through which all changes take place in nature is one of addition and assimilation. Not-living matter is metamorphosed and converted into living matter of a specific type. The following is from Dr. Maudsley: "Continuity of nature certainly, but as certainly not of kind in nature; for the continuity is of different kinds, therefore in some sort a discontinuity, a new kind springing from the basis of the old kind; not continuity by homogeneous but by heterogeneous generation. A new chemical compound, with new properties, was a new thing when it appeared first Though it presupposed the elements which united to form it, and therefore had a continuity of being with them, its new function was not the sum or mechanical effect of the cooperation of their properties; it was quite a special power, that might properly be said to have its autonomy, or, so to speak, its spontaneity.” 2

Again, it must be recognized that the question of the rate of variation has no real bearing on the character of the result. If, as Mr. Darwin believes, all changes have originated in slight variations, the sum of these variations is just as important as if they had been massed into one, though the effect upon our imaginations may be very different. But if we can only bear in mind the fact that after every variation the thing acted upon has ceased to be what it was, and has in some respect become a new creature, we may, even without supposing any long step, adjust our imaginations to this theory of the descent of man. I have purposely stated the case in its most extreme form, a form which we are not at present obliged to accept. There is no proof whatever that all changes have taken place by means of slight variations. Natura non facit saltum is a pure assumption. Even Mr. Darwin allows that this "canon in natural history" has been somewhat exaggerated; while Professor Huxley believes that "nature does make jumps now and then, and that a recognition of the fact is of no small importance in disposing of many minor objections to the doctrine of transmutation."3 But were we to accept the principle 1 See Professor Huxley's article, Encyclopædia Britannica, 9th edition; published also in Science and Culture.

2 Body and Will, p. 132.

8 Quoted in Studies in Science and Religion, by G. F. Wright, p. 139.

that nature makes no leaps, how should we ever determine what constitutes a leap? In the evolution which takes place beneath our observation, we are confronted with a rapidity of differentiation which would be a continual marvel in our eyes were it not for our familiarity with it. The blossom that suddenly bursts out on the tree after decades of growth is a development that is very like a leap. The egg that in three weeks is differentiated into a chicken, with its complex organization and intelligent vitality, reveals a power that can work with great rapidity, even when measured by our standard.

There is nothing to prove that such rapid differentiation may not at times characterize the development of species. There are many facts in nature which seem to compel such an hypothesis. The breaks in the geological record, the abruptness with which new species appear, the seemingly impossible length of time required for the production of existing results by slight variations, and in the evolution of organs, the necessity for the comparatively sudden appearance of marked variations to save them from the obliterating power of natural selection, -all these considerations point with cumulative force to the theory of occasionally rapid or paroxysmal evolution. Such a theory, as I have said, is not a necessity to a theistic scheme. But it renders any such scheme more easily conceivable, and until the burden of evidence is against it we may assume it to be true, and use it as a working hypothesis.

Professor Mivart has been an able supporter of this view, and in other directions has made valuable contributions toward a theistic construction of evolution. But on this very account, when he comes to the question of the descent of man, he seems to me the most conspicuous illustration of an unwise defender of it. In the "Genesis of Species" he squarely states two views of the origin of man, both of which he acknowledges are compatible with theistic belief. One of these is also compatible with evolution. But he deliberately chooses that one which necessitates a break with evolution, and takes the position that the spiritual soul of man must have had a different source from the animal body which it informs. In a succeeding volume2 he endeavors to prove this position by considerations derived from the differences which distinguish man from the highest of the lower animals. Man, he argues, is possessed of an intelligent will, of the power to distinguish between right and wrong, of the ability to express his

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