interpretation of final causes and the ordinary method. When a scientific principle comes upon the stage, particular instances of apparent design retire to a subordinate place.

To prevent misapprehension it may be well, in conclusion, to repeat more explicitly our position. The universe is made for happiness of one sort or another. There is no happiness in the universe, not even that of the smallest insect, but such as was designed by the Creator. The system, however, was chosen as a whole. The prospective pleasure of the worm had some power as an element determining to his creation, his good was a part of that sufficient reason which moved the Divine Being to this particular creative activity. But there are grades of happiness, and hierarchies of being. The same impulse of the designing mind which leads to a provision for the sensational happiness of the oyster, leads also to the subordination of the oyster to the higher orders of being. The welfare of oysters, of birds, and of men was each an element in the final cause which led to the creation as it is. But for the sake of the oysters God would have made the world somewhat different from what it is. But for the sake of the birds he would have made it still more different. Had it not been that man was to be incorporated in the scheme the plan would have been very dif ferent indeed.

It is important for both men of science and theologians to occupy that median position where the truth lies; on the one hand avoiding the presumption which aspires by searching to "find out" God, and on the other hand shunning that false humility which disowns our divine birthright of reason a birthright which enables us to penetrate to some extent into the realm of both final and secondary causes, and to answer partially the two inseparable questions, How does God work? and What does he work for?

We beg our scientific readers, if we have any, to be as patient with us, as we have been with them; for theology, even more than science, suffers from fragmentary treatment. If the men of science object to the petty criticisms and narrow judgments of those who have only a superficial acquaintance with the problems presented in nature, so may students of theology complain if the system of thought to which the great body of Christendom has given its assent is set aside without being adequately understood. "We be brethren," all of us, gathering pebbles along the shore of the same illimitable ocean.

CHAPTER V.

SOME ANALOGIES BETWEEN CALVINISM AND DARWINISM.

I. Introductory Cautions.

To those who believe that the material creation, the mind of man, and the Bible are all productions of one author, it will not be unexpected if attention reveal internal evidence of this community of origin. It need not surprise such to find a thread of analogy running through the sciences which treat of nature as embodied in matter and mind, and that revelation of the supernatural which more fully unfolds the unseen and the future. The interpreters of these three departments of divine revelation should have many principles in common. It may not, therefore, be irreverent to join together, for purposes both of comparison and contrast, the names of Paul, Augustine, and Darwin — the first, an inspired apostle; the second, a profound philosopher and theologian; the third, a painstaking modern interpreter of nature. It would, indeed, be irreverent to place these names together as standing in anything like the same rank of impor

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tance or authority. Therefore let it be expressly understood that these names, as representing different systems of thought, are brought together for purposes of contrast as well as of comparison.

The inspired theologian was limited only by the extent of eternity. The third heaven was within the reach of his clarified vision. The theologian is a philosophical interpreter of the apostle, and deals with the fragmentary records of inspiration as the palaeontologist does with the scattered remains of extinct animals. By careful study of the conformation and articulation of a few bones the comparative anatomist can determine what other bones, and what sinews and muscles, and what hairy covering and digestive organs are complements to the parts discovered. So the philosophic theologian is ever at work upon the typical facts of verbal revelation, arranging around them their natural clothing of flesh and blood, showing how present experiences and newly-discovered facts in other fields of science spring out of and adjust themselves to the pregnant utterances of the inspired writers. The systematic theologian is an exegete, drawing out of the Bible and human history the material from which to construct a system of unending hopes and of eternal aspirations. The naturalist chooses a much humbler sphere for his investigations, and walks by a much dimmer light. With the flickering lamp of ex

perience he gropes his way, between daylight and dark, along the surface of the earth, and stumbles about over the débris that is scattered upon it. The naturalist does not concern himself either with the beginning of things or with the end of things. That is work for the philosopher and the theologian. The naturalist studies, with what light he has, the order of divine operations within the range of what is visible. The phenomena of physical nature are to the man of science what the words of the Bible and the phenomena of human nature are to the Christian theologian. The axioms and intuitions concerning the divine nature and the authority of evidence are the common property of both.

It may or may not be true, that species are of derivative origin, and that natural selection is the main guiding force operative in their derivation from one another. It is sufficient for the purposes of this discussion that the theory has at present a firm hold upon the scientific world. As students of theology we ask: How does this theory, whether true or false, adjust itself to that comprehensive system of theological speculation of whose correctness in the main we are persuaded by a variety of considerations?

II. Salient Features of Calvinism.

The mantle of Augustine fell upon the reformer of Geneva. But "theologians are still