to an aquatic animal, " more like the larvæ of our existing marine Ascidians than any other known form." The Ascidians, probably, gave rise to the lancelet, the lancelet to the ganoids and the lepidosiren; from the lepidosiren "a very small advance would carry us to the Amphibians"-frogs, toads, and long-tailed Tritons. From them proceeded mammals, birds, and reptiles, but "no one can at present say by what line of descent"! From the Monotremes, the lowest of the Mammalia, we rise to the Marsupials, thence to the Lemuridæ, "and the interval is not wide from these to the Simiada," which branched off into two great stems-the New World and the Old World monkeys, from the latter of which came man-" the image of God."

We do not wonder that this theory, stated in so bald a form, should be sternly resented. Mr. Darwin himself has pointed out one chief objection to it, when he says that his pedigree of man is "not of noble quality." It is essentially ignoble, and is an outrage alike on our intelligence and our faith. The common-sense of mankind is shocked by the absurdity of the idea that birds, beasts, and fishes are the progenitors of man-that there is nothing in our nature save what has been evolved or developed from theirs. The north countryman who, some years ago, was asked to describe a meeting of anthropologists, said they were a lot of men trying to prove " that we all cam' frae the monkeys; but, for his part, he thocht they at onyrate had gotten pretty nearly back agen to whar they said they cam' frae," expressed in a forcible though grotesque form a very general and reasonable feeling. Darwinianism, as popularly understood, is certainly derogatory to the greatness of man, and presents us with a painful caricature of our history.

This antipathy has been deepened by the fact that such a theory of the origin of man throws discredit on the Mosaic account of creation. If it be true, we have been assured that the story of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden must be relegated to the realm of pleasant fiction. With Eden and our first parents in their innocence, the doctrine of the fall also vanishes. This necessarily subverts the scheme of Christ's redemption; for, if man has not fallen, how can he be restored or brought back? We seem, in fact, to be landed in the gloomy quagmires of Agnosticism-if not of absolute Atheism. This inference from Darwinism is incessantly flung in our face.

It is, however, no more than fair to Mr. Darwin to say that he is

by no means responsible for the interpretations which have been put upon his theory, and that, while it has been welcomed, and not unnaturally welcomed, by Materialists and Agnostics as a complete refutation of Christian theism, Mr. Darwin did not advance it with any such intention. He was himself no advocate of what Carlyle expressively called "the gospel of dirt." He did not even advocate the idea of spontaneous generation. The fact that he presupposes the existence of living cells involves the further assumption of a Creator, and, indeed, Mr. Darwin distinctly acknowledged this, and saw it to be an absolute necessity of his position. In the concluding words of his "Origin of Man" he wrote: "From the war of nature, from famine. and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one, and that, while this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity from so simple a beginning, endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been and are being evolved." It is evident that, in Mr. Darwin's own view, a theistic interpretation of his strange theory was not only possible, but inevitable. It is thus a mere question of the method of the working of the Creator, and not of His existence. "The evolutionary hypothesis, supposing it to exist, must have had a beginning: who began it? It must have had material to work' with: who furnished it? It is itself a law or system of laws: who enacted them?"

But if Mr. Darwin does not deny the existence of God, he allows no place in the cycling on of the world according to the fixed law of gravity for God's superintendence and government of the world. If He is supposed to have created the living cells, the primordial germs, He at once withdrew and left the growth and development of life from that point to proceed by the simple force of natural selection, and "other influences." Nature is thus regarded as automatic or selfacting. No scope is given for special superintendence; the development is accidental and mechanical, rather than intelligent and according to design. We can no more understand the progress of life than we can understand its beginnings, apart from the idea of supernatural power. Ex nihilo nihil fit; and at each great step in the process of evolution we must, as reasonable men, believe in the intervention of One who is greater than nature. Mr. Darwin argues against such

intervention, and in words which are unworthy of the philosophical calmness claimed for him, ridicules the doctrine of special creation. as a curious illustration of the blindness of preconceived opinion." For our part, we can see no greater difficulty in believing that "at innumerable periods in the earth's history certain elementary atoms have been commanded to flash into living tissues," than in admitting that such a thing happened at the beginning. We venture also to affirm that no reader of Mr. Darwin's works can fail to be impressed with a sense of the feebleness and inadequacy of the causes to which he attributes such vast results. He is continually having recourse to "other influences," and "unknown agencies." What he means when he says that certain phenomena of life" have all been produced by laws acting round us," we are at a loss to conceive. These laws are such as growth with reproduction; inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life; the struggle for life; divergence of character, and the extinction of less improved forms. If Mr. Darwin uses the word law, as meaning only "the ascertained sequence of events," his statement amounts to nothing; for it simply affirms that certain phenomena follow one another in an ascertained order, and leaves us in absolute ignorance of the cause of this order, which must, nevertheless, be accounted for if the doctrine of special creation is to be set aside. If, on the other hand, he uses the word law as equivalent to the will of an Intelligent Power, he concedes all for which we need contend. That Intelligent Power is God. Evolution is, as we believe, one method, perhaps a chief method, of God's working, but it must not be held in such a form as to exclude the belief either in His uniform superintendence, or in His occasional special interference.

A special interference there must have been at the creation of man. Man, with his intellect, his conscience, and his spiritual affections, is not the natural descendant of the Old World monkey. We are not yet prepared to admit that even our physical nature has been derived from the anthropoid apes (for the position has not been proved); but if we could admit it, we repudiate the idea that Mr. Darwin has given an accurate genesis of our intellectual and moral powers. It is, perhaps, conceivable that to a physical nature formed like the bodies of the lower animals a special spiritual gift was added by the breath of God. All we can say is that as yet the evidence is utterly incon

clusive; while the endeavour to develop the moral sense out of the simple feelings of pleasure and pain, liking and disliking, with which the lower animals are provided, is an egregious failure. The gulf here is impassable.

The Darwinian theory of evolution is to-day what it was a quarter of a century ago-a clever and ingenious hypothesis, and nothing more. Careful as the author of it was in his investigations, he has made a continual confusion between assumptions and facts. Such sentences as: "I am led to suppose," or

we have only

Probably "

to suppose," are made to do duty for solid argument. is invested with the force of "certainly." We quite agree with Mr. Darwin that on his hypothesis it is as hopeless to inquire into the development of our mental powers, as to inquire into the origin of life itself. He acknowledges that "the great break in the organic chain between man and his nearest allies cannot be bridged over by any living species." He allows, further, that the connecting link between one species and another cannot be found; that species during the whole of the historical period have remained unchanged. Not one is known to have passed into another. No evidence has been adduced to show that ascidians have grown into fish, fish into frogs, frogs into birds and reptiles. Variations there are, but horses remain horses, sheep remain sheep, monkeys remain monkeys, and the offspring of all animals bear indubitable marks of their parentage. If such a process as Mr. Darwin's hypothesis supposes was really in operation, by what means was it arrested? How has this grand lifeimpulse, this marvellous ascending power, been chilled and destroyed? To say that the process is so slow that we cannot reasonably expect to see any indication of it in a few thousand years, is to beg the question. A theory which postulates thousands of millions of years is self-condemned, and is the fruit of "the scientific imagination rather than of patient and careful observation of facts. The most trustworthy astronomers, like Sir William Thomson, cannot grant Mr. Darwin's demands for so "prodigious" an age of the world; their most careful calculations will not carry them to so remote a past: on purely scientific grounds, as Mr. Darwin himself candidly admitted, "the most eminent palæontologists-viz., Cuvier, Agassiz, Barrande, Pictet, Falconer, E. Forbes, &c., and all our greatest geologists, as Lyell, Murchison, Sedgwick, &c.—have unaminously, often vehemently, maintained the immutability of species." Even Professor Huxley, "after

much consideration, and with assuredly no bias against Mr. Darwin's views" expresses his "clear conviction that, as the evidence stands, it is not absolutely proven that a group of animals having all the characteristics exhibited by species in Nature has ever been originated by selection, whether artificial or natural. Groups having the morphological character of species, distinct and permanent races, in fact, have been so produced over and over again; but there is no positive evidence at present that any group of animals has, by variation and selective breeding, given rise to another group which was even in the least degree infertile with the first. As the case stands at present, this

little rift within the lute' is not to be disguised nor overlooked." While, therefore, we have every disposition to acknowledge all that was valuable in the character and work of Mr. Darwin, we cannot join in the unqualified eulogies which have recently been pronounced upon them. That he has added much to our knowledge of natural history, and modified many current conceptions both in theology and science, may be freely admitted. He has, we suppose, proved that species are variable, though not indefinitely variable, and, still less, mutable. And, while he has traced the variation to the influence of circumstances (natural selection, &c.), he has overlooked, or not given sufficient prominence to, various preceding and co-operating causes. His noble qualities of mind and heart, his untiring industry, his humility and generosity are worthy of the highest praise. But this ungrudging appreciation does not imply acquiescence in theories which have not been, and cannot be, scientifically proved. As Christian men, we are bound to cherish a pure and disinterested love of truth in every branch of inquiry, to welcome fresh light from whatever quarter it may come and whatever effects it may have on our previous beliefs. An unreasoning opposition to science is censurable and mischievous; not more so, however, than an unreasoning acquiescence in dicta advanced in its name. We must discriminate between facts and theories; between phenomena (whether in Scripture or in the material universe) and their interpretation. It is a Christian duty to prove all things, and to hold fast that which is good. Mr. Darwin was a close and patient observer, but not a great and logical thinker. His collection of facts is invaluable. The inferences he has drawn from them are utterly insufficient to bear the weight of the superstructure of which they, and not the facts, are the foundation. His entire system is built on a may have been, and no may have been can set aside the