[NOTE. Without raising any question as to the correctness or otherwise of Mr. Houghton's interpretation of Romans iii. 21-26, given in the foregoing Article,—since we desire to secure to our contributors the utmost freedom in the presentation of their personal opinions-we deem it proper to state that Universalists generally do not find in the New Testament the doctrine that the death of Christ was in any sense necessary "as the condition of forgiveness on the side of God."-EDITOR.]

ARTICLE XXIV.

Evolution and Miracle.

A study of the solar system shows that the sun revolves on its axis from west to east, and that such of the planets does the same, that the orbital motions of such is in the same direction, that the satellites or rings of each planet, with the possible exception of those of Uranus, move from west to east, that the orbits of the planets are very nearly in the plane of the sun's equator, and that the orbital velocities of the several are in the ratio of their distances from the sun, those nearer that body moving faster than those more remote.

The animal kingdom is divided by naturalists into radiates, mollusks, articulates and vertebrates. These are each subdivided, the last into fishes, reptiles, birds, mammals, the last again, into quadrupeds, quadremana, bimana, and these severally into species, the elephant, horse, ox, monkey, man, and each of these again into varieties.

This classification implies relationship, and is based upon a certain likeness of structure and similarity of functions in the organs of one animal and those of another, however much they may differ in other respects. The turtle and the snake are quite unlike in externals, but both are reptiles and vertebrates, and so akin the one to the other. The ox and whale differ much in organism and habitat, but both are mammals and vertebrates, and so related, though remotely. As every creature resembles some other, and that other a third, and so on, there seems to be a kinship of all.

However great the distance organically from the protozoan

to man, it is spanned for the most part, at least, by a succession of animals, the one above anywhere in these series differing only slightly from that next below it. It is far also from the seaweed to the oak, but the space is filled by lichens, mosses, ferns, brakes, pines, and so on, the last anywhere in the order more highly organized than its predecessor.

Moreover, paleontology, shows that the first forms of life upon the earth were relatively low, and, as time advanced, higher ones appeared. In the palezoic eon were only gelatinous fishes, succeeded by vertebrate fishes. In the mesozoic eon reptiles and birds flourished. The cenozoic eon gave birth to mammals, at the head of which is man.

Such are some of the facts given by a study of the solar system, the earth and animal and plant life upon it. No competent authority disputes them. But when an explanation of the facts is sought, inquiry is made, how came these things thus? when the cause of the present order is demanded, different and conflicting answers are given.

Four hypotheses, at least, are offered in explanation of the facts.

1. That the sun and planets exist in their present relations, the earth in its structure and strata, and animal and vegetable life, are such by the operations of chance.

2. That the solar system, earth with its population and all the laws which rule in the heavens and earth are eternal. There was no beginning, no creation. Things always have been as they now are.

3. That God made the sun, planets, their moons and rings, gave them their rotations on their axes, the planets their orbital movements; determined their several distances from the sun, and their densities. He also made the dry land and gathered the waters into the sea. He caused the earth to bring forth grass and herb and tree. He peopled the sea with fish, the land with beast, the air with fowl. He either created all extinct and living species of animal and plant life in six days, or from time to time as the earth was suited to them. And all this he did by a personal and direct supervis

NEW SERIES. VOL. XXIV.

26

ion of the work, not usiug a lower order as the foundation of a higher, but making the latter de novo, as to matter and

structure.

4. That what is now the solar system was once a fire mist, filling all the space between the sun's center and Neptune and beyond; that this mass began to move around a common center, cooling and contracting. When sufficient motion had been attained, what is now the planet Neptune was either thrown off or left as a ring by the shrinking sphere, which ring ultimately breaking, assumed the globular form, retaining the axial and orbital motion it had received from the parent mass. This process was repeated in the case of Uranus and the other planets until Mercury was reached, since which time the sun has become too solid to part with more of his material. As the planets were born of the sun, so the satelites were born of the planets. In this way the solar system was formed and has become a fixity.

Moreover, according to this hypothesis, the earth, when it parted from the sun, was still fire mist. It took ages to cool it sufficiently to permit the formation of a solid crust. In time this was effected, and the surface of the earth assumed its present character, land and water. The first life upon the earth, animal and plant, was of a low type, and began in the ocean. Out of this was developed a higher type, and higher thence till the varied population of sea and land was produced, until the last link in the chain, man, was reached. This, briefly stated, is ihe hypotheses of evolution. The atheistic hypotheses of chance and the eternal existence of things as they are of course we reject. Between the hypotheses of special creation, as commonly understood, and evolution, the latter seems to us to best explain the facts of our world and the system to which we belong, to best account for the substance and relations of the sun, planets, and moons, for the resemblances, differences and relationships of animal and plant life.

Evolutionists are of three sorts.

1. Atheistic. These hold that matter and force are eter

nal and together have produced the existing cosmos without the aid of a planning Mind, a guiding Hand. To this class belonged Laplace, who said to Napoleon, concerning the substance and movements of the solar system, "in explaining them I have no need of the hypothesis of a God." Here belong, also, Ludwig Büchner and Ernest Häckel, Germans. Büchner is an ardent Darwinist. He proposes to eliminate from men's minds the idea of God which he declares obstructs our whole spiritual, social, and political development. Atheism alone, he says, leads to freedom, progress, and humanism. "The theory of Darwin," says Häckel, "logically carried out, leads to the monistic or mechanical conception of the universe. Our theory considers organic as well as inorganic bodies to be the necessary product of natural forces. It does not see in every species of animal and plant the embodied thought of a personal Creator, but the expression for the time being of a mechanical process of development of matter, the expression of a necessarily active cause. Where teleological Dualism seeks the arbitrary thoughts of a capricious Creator in miracles of creation, causal Monism finds in the process of development the necessary effects of eternal, immutable laws of nature." 1

Here belongs Tyndall, if we may judge him from this part of his celebrated Belfast address of 1874. "Is there not a temptation," he says, "to close to some extent with Lucretius when he affirms that Nature is seen to do all things spontaneously of herself, without the meddling of the gods,'or with Bruno when he declares that matter is not 'that mere empty capacity which philosophers have pictured her to be, but the universal mother who brings forth all things as the fruit of her own womb.' Abandoning all disguise, the confession I feel bound to make before you is, that I prolong the vision backward across the boundary of the experimental evidence and discern in that matter, which we in our ignorance, and, notwithstanding our profound reverence for its Creator, have hitherto covered with opprobrium, the promise and potency of every form and quality of life.”

1 Schmid; Theories of Darwin.

2. Deistic. These affirm, in substance, that God made matter and force or found them already at hand, and gave them certain definite and fixed laws and left all to their opereration and guidance. If he has any purpose to accomplish, he leaves it to be done by secondary causes, without any other supervision or intervention than that he gave in the beginning. In this class, so far as we can discover from his writings, we find Mr. Darwin. "The birth," he says, "both of the species and the individual, are equally parts of that grand sequence of events which our minds refuse to accept as the result of blind chance. The understanding revolts at such a conclusion." 2 He speaks of the laws impressed upon matter by the Creator. He does not concern himself with the origin of life. He starts with it at the lowest and undertakes to show how it became so diversified and advanced chiefly by natural selection, but he leaves us to infer that the Creator made one living being and possibly four or five, from which all the others are descended. At the same time he ridicules the idea of Mr. Wallace that "some intelligent power has guided or determined the development of man." And he heartily praises Häckel, whom we have seen is a violent materialist and atheist. In this class we must place Herbert Spencer. He has chosen to work out his entire philosophy in terms of matter and force, but he assumes that back of these, or identical with the latter, back of all the phenomena of the universe, is a Power inscrutable, unknowable he insists, but still the cause of all. He has no patience with the doctrine of special creation, stigmatizing it as the "carpenter" theory of creation. Deity never interferes; He works alone by evolutionary laws, by secondary causes.

3. Theistic. These hold that the creation has proceeded from the first by a process of development, guided by infinite power, wisdom and love; that God chose this method of doing his work, and all along the ages he has watched it and kept it in operation, to effect his mighty and beneficent purposes. Here belong most of those who have studied the subOrigin of Species.

2 Descent of Man.