Dr. Winchell, chancellor of the new university at Syracuse, in his volume
just issued upon the "Doctrine of Evolution," adopts it in the abstract as
"clearly as the law of universal intelligence under which complex results
are brought into existence" (whatever that may mean), accepts it
practically for the inorganic world as a geologist should, hesitates as to
the organic world, and sums up the arguments for the origin of species by
diversification unfavorably for the Darwinians, regarding it mainly from the
geological side. As some of our zoologists and palaeontologists may have
somewhat to say upon this matter, we leave it for their consideration. We
are tempted to develop a point which Dr. Winchell incidentally refers
to--viz., how very modern the idea of the independent creation and fixity
of species is, and how well the old divines got on without it. Dr. Winchell
reminds us that St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas were model
evolutionists; and, where authority is deferred to, this should count for
something.
Mr. Kingsley's eloquent and suggestive "Westminster Sermons," in which he
touches here and there upon many of the topics which evolution brings up,
has incorporated into the preface a paper which he read in 187i to a
meeting of London clergy at Sion College, upon certain problems of natural
theology as affected by modern theories in science. We may hereafter have
occasion to refer to this volume. Meanwhile, perhaps we may usefully
conclude this article with two or three short extracts from it:
"The God who satisfies our conscience ought more or less to satisfy our
reason also. To teach that was Butler's mission; and he fulfilled it well.
But it is a mission which has to be refulfilled again and again, as human
thought changes, and human science develops, For if, in any age or country,
the God who seems to be revealed by Nature seems also different from the
God who is revealed by the then-popular religion, then that God and the
religion which tells of that God will gradually cease to be believed in.
"For the demands of reason--as none knew better than good Bishop
Butler--must be and ought to be satisfied. And, therefore, when a popular
war arises between the reason of any generation and its theology, then it
behooves the ministers of religion to inquire, with all humility and godly
fear, on whose side lies the fault; whether the theology which they expound
is all that it should be, or whether the reason of those who impugn it is
all that it should be."
Pronouncing it to be the duty of the naturalist to find out the how of
things, and of the natural theologian to find out the why, Mr. Kingsley
continues:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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