is around the supposed declarations of Scripture on the subject of creation that the real "conflict" has centred. Let us look the matter quite fairly in the face. We accept the conclusion that (let us say) the horse was developed and gradually perfected or advanced to his present form and characteristics, by a number of stages, and that it took a very long time to effect this result. Now, if there is anywhere a statement in Holy Writ that (a) a horse was per saltum called into existence in a distinctive and complete form, by a special creative fiat, and that (b) this happened not gradually, but in a limited and specified moment of time, then I will at once admit that the record (assuming that its meaning is not to be mistaken) is not provably right, if it is not clearly wrong; and accept the consequences, momentous as they would be. If, in the same way, the Record asserts that man, or at least man the direct progenitor of the Semitic race,^[3] was a distinct and special creation, his bodily frame having some not completely explained developmental connection with the animal creation, but his higher nature being imparted as a special and unique creative endowment out of the line of physical development altogether, then I shall accept the Record, because the proved facts of science have nothing to say against it, whatever Drs. Buchner, Vogt, Häckel, and others may assert to the contrary.

In the first of my two instances, the popular idea has long been that the sacred record does say something about a direct and separate creative act; and this idea has been the origin and ground of all the supposed conflict between science and "religion." As long as this idea continues, it can hardly be said that a book addressed to the clearing up of the subject is unnecessary or to be rejected per se.

As to the method in which this subject will be dealt with, I shall maintain that the Scripture does not say anything about the horse, or the whale, or the ox, or any other animal, being separately or directly created. And the view thus taken of the Record I have not met with before. This it is necessary to state, not because the fact would lend any value to the interpretation—rather the contrary; but because it justifies me in submitting what, if new, may be intrinsically important, to the judgment of the Church; and it also protects me from the offence of plagiarism, however unwitting. If others have thought out the same rendering of the Genesis history, so much the better for my case; but what is here set down occurred to me quite independently.

A study of the real meaning of the Record, in the light of what may be fairly regarded as proved facts, cannot be without its use to the Christian. If it be true that a certain amount of information on the subject of creation is contained in revelation, it must have been so contained for a specific purpose—a purpose to be attained at some stage or other of the history of mankind. It is possible also that the study will bring to light a probable, or at any rate a possible, explanation of some of those apparent (if they are not real) "dead-locks" which occur in pursuing the course of life history on the earth.

Such considerations will naturally have more weight with the Christian believer than with those who reject the faith. But at least the advantage of them remains with the believer, till the contrary is shown. The extreme evolutionist may cling to the belief that at some future time he will be able to account for the entrance of LIFE into the world's history, that he will be able to explain the connection of MIND with MATTER; or he may hope that the sterility of certain hybrid forms will one day be explained away, and so on. But till these things are got over, the believer cannot be reproached as holding an unreasonable belief when his creed maintains that Life is a gift and prerogative of a great Author of Life; that Mind is the result of a spiritual environment which is a true, though physically intangible, part of nature; and that the absence of any proof that variation and development cross certain—perhaps not very clearly ascertained, but indubitably existing—lines, points to the designed fixing of certain types, and the restriction of developmental creation to running in certain lines of causation up to those types, and not otherwise.

It can never be unreasonable to believe anything that is in exact accordance with facts as ascertained at any given moment of time—unless, indeed, the fact is indicated by other considerations as being one likely to disappear from the category of fact altogether.^[4]

Enough has thus, I hope, appeared, to make the appearance of this little work, at least excusable; what more may be necessary to establish its claim to be read must depend on what it contains.

I have only to add that I can make no pretension to be a teacher of science. I trust that there is no material error of statement; if there is, I shall be the first to retract and correct it. I am quite confident that no correction that may be needed in detail will seriously affect the general argument.

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CHAPTER II.

THE ELEMENT OF FAITH IN CREATION.

In the extract placed on the title-page, the author of the Epistle clearly places our conclusion that God "established the order of creation"—the lines, plans, developmental-sequences, aims, and objects, that the course of creation has hitherto pursued and is still ceaselessly pursuing,^[5] in the category of faith.

Of course, from one point of view—very probably that of the writer of the Epistle—this conclusion is argued by the consideration that the human mind forms no distinct conception of the formation of solid—or any other form of—matter in vacuo,