The action of living organisms depends upon and subsumes the laws of inorganic matter. Similarly the actions of animal life dépend upon and subsume the laws of organic matter. In the same way the actions of a self-conscious moral agent, such as man, depend upon and subsume the laws of animal life. When a part or the whole series of these natural actions is altered or suspended by the intervention of action of a still higher order, we have then a miracle."

66

In this way we find a perfect harmony in the double nature of man, his rationality making use of and subsuming his animality; his soul arising from direct and immediate creation, and his body being formed at first (as now in each separate individual) by derivative or secondary creation, through natural laws. By such secondary creation, i. e., by natural laws, for the most part as yet unknown but controlled by "Natural Selection," all the various kinds of animals and plants have been manifested on this planet. That Divine action has concurred and concurs in these laws we know by deductions from our primary intuitions; and physical science, if unable to demonstrate such action, is at least as impotent to disprove it. Disjoined from these deductions, the phenomena of the universe present an aspect devoid of all that appeals to the loftiest aspirations of man, that which stimulates his efforts after goodness, and presents consolations for unavoidable shortcomings. Conjoined with these same deductions, all the harmony of physical Nature and the constancy of its laws are preserved unimpaired, while the reason, the conscience, and the æsthetic instincts, are alike gratified. We have thus a true reconciliation of science and religion, in which each gains and neither loses, one being complementary to the other.

Some apology is due to the reader for certain observations and arguments which have been here advanced, and

the higher law of morals and religion coming to some different conclu. sion."

which have little in the shape of novelty to recommend them. But, after all, novelty can hardly be predicated of the views here criticised and opposed. Some of these seem almost a return to the "fortuitous concourse of atoms" of Democritus, and even the very theory of "Natural Selection" itself-a "survival of the fittest"-was in part thought out not hundreds but thousands of years ago. Opponents of Aristotle maintained that by the accidental occurrence of combinations, organisms have been preserved and perpetuated such as final causes, did they exist, would have brought about, disadvantageous combinations or variations being speedily exterminated. "For when the very same combinations happened to be produced which the law of final causes would have called into being, those combinations which proved to be advantageous to the organism were preserved; while those which were not advantageous perished, and still perished like the minotaurs and sphinxes of Empedocles." 08

In conclusion, the author ventures to hope that this treatise may not be deemed useless, but have contributed, however slightly, toward clearing the way for peace and conciliation, and for a more ready perception of the harmony which exists between those deductions from our primary intuitions before alluded to, and the teachings of physical science, as far, that is, as concerns the evolution of organic forms-the genesis of species.

The aim has been to support the doctrine that these species have been evolved by ordinary natural laws (for the most part unknown) controlled by the subordinate action of "Natural Selection," and at the same time to remind

(

68 Quoted from the Rambler of March, 1860, p. 364: ""Оñоν μèv ovv ἅπαντα συνέβη, ὥσπερ κἂν εἰ ἕνεκά του ἐγίνετο, ταῦτα μὲν ἐσώθη ἀπὸ τοῦ αυτομάτου συστάντα ἐπιτηδείως, ὅσα δὲ μὴ οὕτως ἀπώλετο καὶ ἀπόλλυται, καθάπερ Εμπεδοκλῆς λέγει τὰ βουγενῆ καὶ ἀνδροπρωρα.”ARIST. Phys., ii. c. 8.

some that there is and can be absolutely nothing in physical science which forbids them to regard those natural laws as acting with the Divine concurrence and in obedience to a creative fiat originally imposed on the primeval Cosmos, "in the beginning," by its Creator, its Upholder, and its Lord.

INDEX.