Page:Transactions NZ Institute Volume 9 Supplement.djvu/55

Rh "It is a very common thing to hear the charge of irreverence brought indiscriminately against all advocates of the Evolution hypothesis. We are tempted to hurl back the charge against those who bring it. The mental constitution of that individual is certainly peculiar, who considers it an exalted conception of the Creator to regard Him as the great clockmaker and clock-mender of the universe, but a degraded conception to imagine Him as being capable of bringing about natural change in a way which utterly transcends our efforts, and which we are, even now, only beginning dimly to perceive and understand. There is no one, we, believe, who has carefully considered the matter, who does not see that any intelligible theory of Evolution demands behind it a forecasting, intelligent will, and a constructive power far beyond any that we can exercise, or hope to exercise. Creation by law, as has frequently been remarked by our ablest thinkers, is not creation without God. * * * As to the second objection. * * * Can we, without irreverence, suppose that this method of trial and error is the plan of working which the Creator has, since the dawn of time, been continually employing in the world which he then pronounced good? * * * Are we competent to pronounce, off-hand, on the best plan of working for the Creator, and to decide on the precise properties which entitle any work of His hand to be pronounced good? * * * Why should the same method which is seen in the advancement of man, and also in the advancement of lower forms of being, be deemed atheistical, or, at least, inconsistent with true views of the nature and perfection of God? * * *

"In so far, then, as we can see, there is no reason for the theologian to feel any à priori hostility towards the doctrine of continuity. We see nothing to prevent the most devoutly-minded man from entering on the consideration of Evolution theories with as little prejudice or conception as he would enter on a consideration of the dynamical theory of heat. The great majority of questions raised are purely scientific, and must be examined by scientific methods and decided on scientific grounds. * * * In no respect does the advance of science tend to undermine the essentials of religious belief; and the inference may be drawn that the next generation will think as lightly of the difficulties we now feel in connection with Evolution theories as we think of the difficulties of those who were staggered by geological facts hostile to the interpretation of the opening chapters of Genesis, or as they thought of the perplexities of Galileo's persecutors."

So, too, Canon Duckworth:—"I, for one, am no alarmist. I have always deplored the panic fear with which many good men receive the results of modern research. I see no necessary connection between the theory of Evolution as a means of accounting for the boundless diversity and yet perfect developments of life and an Atheistic philosophy. Unhappily, the two have now for some time been connected inseparably in the popular mind. Is it too much to say that the ark of God's truth has suffered almost as much from the well-meaning hands put forth to steady it as from the Philistine spoilers who would bear it away into a strange land? How much of the unbelief of this age, and of every age, has been generated by the rash antagonism and denunciation of ill-advised believers? Oh, for more faith in the unity and eternity of Truth! Oh, for that patient confidence (the lack of which is a reproach to Christian men), that 'every good and perfect gift' of knowledge, whether directly or indirectly revealed, is from above, and cometh down from the Father of Lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." "Truly," as Professor Bruce says, "the best apology for Christianity is Christianity itself, professed by men living saintly, noble lives."