confidence, all organic life is but a development. The moneron, you remember, is a perfectly simple and structureless lump of protoplasm. The first step in its development would be the formation of a kernel or nucleus; and this may have taken place in a purely physical manner, through condensation. By this process the moneron becomes what, in physiological language, is called a cell; and the most perfect, the most complicated vegetable or animal organism, is merely a collection or community of such cells. The cells assume different forms and characters according to circumstances-according, for example, as they belong to the nervous or to the muscular tissue; but they are essentially neither more nor less than little nucleated lumps of protoplasm.

I shall point out to you hereafter, that if the existence of a divine mind and purpose be denied, this theory of development becomes involved in contradictions and absurdities. But there seems nothing unreasonable about it, if the existence of such mind and purpose be admitted. It is no more objectionable to the pious than to the scientific mind. To deny spontaneous generation is virtually to assert, that one of the

many compounds of carbon, and one alone, has been miraculously produced. And it does seem antecedently improbable that, at this single point, the Creator should have arbitrarily interfered with the unity of nature and the unity of her laws of development. At any rate, it is easy to see which is the safer position for the theologian to adopt. The Church used always to assume that scientific doctrines would turn out to be wrong. But history teaches us that these doctrines have, for the most part, turned out to be right. Theologians have had to reconcile themselves and their theology to the movement of the earth, and to many other doctrines which they once looked upon as pre-eminently irreligious, but the truth of which it is no longer possible to doubt. The scientists were correct in their astronomy; why should they not be correct in their biology? We had better assume that they are, if we wish to place our religion upon an absolutely immovable foundation. I hope to show you by-and-by, that although the doctrine of evolution be valid, valid even up to the point of spontaneous generation, the grand old words are as true to-day as before the birth of science: "In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

It is because He is always with us, that we are sometimes apt to imagine He is nowhere to be found.

"Oh where is the sea?' the fishes cried,

As they swam the crystal clearness through;
'We've heard from of old of the ocean's tide,
And we long to look on the waters blue.
The wise ones speak of an infinite sea;
Oh who can tell us if such there be?'

The lark flew up in the morning bright,
And sung and balanced on sunny wings,
And this was its song: 'I see the light;
I look on a world of beautiful things;
But flying and singing everywhere,

In vain have I searched to find the air.'"

103

Agnosticism.

VIII.

WE

EVOLUTION OF WORLDS.

E have been engaged in taking a brief survey of the modern doctrine of evolution, in order that we may be in a position to answer the question, whether this doctrine is incompatible with the existence or knowableness of God. In the course of our survey, we have seen that there is no impassable barrier between species, but that the transmutation of one species into another, and the development of all existing species from a few primordial forms, may now be considered established facts. We have seen that there is no impassable barrier between plants and animals for many objects have been discovered possessing the characteristic features of both; and therefore it is conceivable, not to say

probable, that the entire vegetable and animal worlds may have been evolved from some single primary living creature. And lastly, we have seen that there is no impassable barrier between living and non-living matter: for protoplasm, the basis of life, is merely a peculiar combination of non-living elements; and many inorganic objects, for example crystals, present phenomena very similar to, and certainly not less mysterious than, the growth of organic bodies. The first living creature, therefore, from which the animal and vegetable worlds are supposed to have come, may itself have been an evolution from nonliving matter. We have yet one further step to take, in order to reach the beginning of the present system of things.

I mentioned that protoplasm was first formed at the bottom of the sea.

probably At any

rate, water of some kind is an essential part of its composition. It is because protoplasm contains a considerable proportion of water, that it is in the peculiar, semi-fluid state, which we saw to be the necessary condition of organic growth. Whence, then, came water? The complete answer to this question would be a complete history of the universe. Let us see now the way in which the evolutionists endeavour to