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however slightly, that room is left for the idea of a material process. Out of the dust of the ground;' that is, out of the ordinary elements of nature, was that body formed which is still upheld and perpetuated by organic forces acting under the rules of law. Nothing which science has discovered, or can discover, is capable of traversing that simple narrative. On this subject M. Guizot lays great stress, as many others do, on what he calls the supernatural' in creation, as distinguished from the operations now visible in nature. 'De quelle façon et par ' quelle puissance le genre humain a-t-il commencé sur la terre?' In reply to this question, he proceeds to argue that man must have been the result either of mere material forces, or of a supernatural power exterior to, and superior to matter. Spontaneous generation, he argues, supposing it to exist at all, can give birth only to infant beings-to the first hours, and feeblest forms, of nascent life. But man- the human pair- must evidently have been complete from the first; created in the full possession of their powers and faculties. C'est à cette condition seulement qu'en apparaissant pour la première fois sur la terre l'homme aurait pu y vivre s'y perpétuer, et y fonder le genre humain. Evidemment l'autre origine du genre humain est seul admissible, seul possible. Le fait surnaturel de la création explique 'seul la première apparition de l'homme ici-bas.' This is a common, but, as it seems to us, not a very safe argument. If the supernatural'-that is to say, the superhuman and the superphysical cannot be found nearer to us than this, we fear it will not be found at all. It is very difficult to free ourselves from this notion that by going far enough back, we can ' find out God' in some sense in which we cannot find Him now. To accept the primeval narrative of the Jewish Scriptures as coming from authority, and as bringing before us the personal agency of the Creator,- this is one thing. To argue that no other origin for the first parents of the human race is conceiv able than that they were moulded perfect, without the instru mentality of any means, this is quite another thing. The various hypotheses of development, of which Darwin's theory is only a new and special version, are at least a method of escape from the logical puzzle which M. Guizot puts. These hypotheses are indeed utterly destitute of proof; and in the form which they have as yet assumed, it may justly be said that they involve such violations of, or departures from, all that we know of the existing order of things, as to deprive them absolutely of all scientific basis. But the close and mysterious relations between the mere animal frame of man, and that of the lower animals, does, render the idea of a

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common relationship by descent at least conceivable. Indeed, in proportion as it seems to approach nearer to processes of which we have some knowledge, it is, in a degree, more conceivable than creation without any process, of which we have no knowledge and can have no conception.

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But whatever may have been the method or process of creation, it is creation still. If it were proved to-morrow that the first man was born' from some preexisting form of life, it would still be true that such a birth must have been, in every sense of the word, a new creation. It would still be as true that God' formed him out of the dust of the earth,' as it is true that He has so formed every child who is now called to answer the first question of all theologies. And we must remember that the language of Scripture nowhere draws, or seems even conscious of, the distinction which modern philosophy draws so sharply between the 'natural' and the supernatural.' All the operations of nature are spoken of as operations of the Divine Mind. Creation is the outward embodiment of a Divine Idea. It is in this sense, apparently, that the narrative of Genesis speaks of every plant being formed before it grew.' But the same language is held, not less decidedly, of every ordinary birth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being imperfect. In Thy book all my members were written which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there were none of them.' And these words, spoken of the individual birth, have been applied not less truly to the modern idea of the Genesis of all organic life. Whatever may have been the physical or material relation between its successive forms, the ideal relation has been now clearly recognised, and reduced to scientific definition. All the members of that frame which has received its highest interpretation in man, had existed, with lower offices assigned to them, in the animals which flourished before man was born. All theories of development have been simply attempts to suggest the manner in which, or the physical process by means of which, this ideal continuity of type and pattern has been preserved. But whilst all these suggestions have been in the highest degree uncertain, some of them violently absurd, the one thing which is certain is the fact for which they endeavour to account. But what is that fact? It is one which belongs to the world of mind, not to the world of matter. When Professor Owen tells us, for example, that certain jointed bones in the whale's paddle are the same bones which in the mole enable it to burrow, which in the bat enable it to fly, and in man constitute his hand with all its wealth of functions, he does not mean that physically and actually they are the same

bones, nor that they have the same uses, nor that they ever have been, or ever can be, transferable from one kind of animal to another. He means that in a purely ideal or mental conception of the plan of all vertebrate skeletons, these bones occupy the same relative place-relative, that is, not to origin or use, but to the plan or conception of that skeleton as a whole.

Here the supermaterial,' and in this sense the supernatural, element, that is to say, the ideal conformity and unity of conception, is the one unquestionable fact, in which we recognise directly the working of a mind with which our own has very near relations. Here, as elsewhere, we see the natural, in the largest sense, including and embodying the supernatural; the material, including the supermaterial. No possible theory, whether true or false, in respect to the physical means employed to preserve the correspondence of parts which runs through all creation can affect the certainty of that mental plan and purpose which alone makes such correspondence intelligible to us, and in which alone it may be said to exist. The two ideas,-that of a physical cause and that of a mental purpose,--are not antagonist; but the one is larger and more comprehensive than the other. Let us take a case. In many animal frames there are what have been called silent members' members which have no reference to the life or use of the animal, but only to the general pattern on which all vertebrate skeletons have been formed. Mr. Darwin, when he sees such a member in any animal, concludes with certainty that this animal is the lineal descendant by ordinary generation of some other animal in which that member was not silent but turned to use. Professor Owen, taking a larger and wider view, would say, without pretending to explain how its presence is to be accounted for physically, that the silent member has relation to a general purpose or plan which can be traced from the dawn of life, but which did not receive its full accomplishment until man was born. This is certain the other is a theory. The assumed physical cause may be true or false. It is much more probably false than true; but in any case the mental purpose and design the conformity to an abstract idea-this is certain. The relation in which created forms stand to our own mind, and to our understanding of their purpose, is the one thing which we can surely know, because it belongs to our own consciousness. It is entirely independent of any belief we may entertain, or any knowledge we may acquire, of the processes employed for the fulfilment of that purpose.

And yet we are often told, as if it were a profound philosophy, that we must be very cautious how we ascribe intention to