It is only from this basis of a possession of truth as it is offered to us by Christian theism, and by the facts of redemption and of a reconciliation of man with God, that the breach between faith and knowledge, between religion and the life of culture, which at present takes place in so many a heart and mind, can be healed; and, far from seeking to cripple or hinder those who stand on this basis, it alone gives to their theoretical and practical activity its joyous strength and certain end, to {410} their sphere of knowledge its universal breadth. The Apostle Paul, at the end of 1 Corinthians, XV, when he takes a comprehensive view from the highest points of Christian hope to which he found himself led from those fundamentals, knows of no fitter words to conclude with and to give it a practical application than these: "Wherefore, my beloved brethren, be ye steadfast, unmoveable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labour is not vain in the Lord." * * * * * Notes [1] "The International Scientific Series." No. XIII. [2] "Evolution of Man." [3] It was only when the manuscript of this work was nearly finished and the first part of it had gone to the press, that the author received the second part of K. E. von Baer's "_Studien aus dem Gebiete der Naturwissenschaften_" (Studies in the Realm of Natural Sciences). It contains another essay on teleology, "_Ueber Zielstrebigkeit in den organischen Koerpern insbesondere_," and a treatise on Darwin's doctrine, "_Ueber Darwin's Lehre_," which Baer had promised long ago and which the public had anxiously awaited. It is no little satisfaction to find that I, from my modest premises, reached results regarding the naturo-philosophical problems and their weight in the religious realm which so fully harmonize with the views of this first authority in the realm of the history of development. I shall still have occasion here and there to avail myself of a study of this latest and most important publication upon the question of Darwinism, and shall confine myself here to the remark that von Baer, although he rejects the selection theory and the superficial treatment of the principle of evolution on the part of materialists, is by no means disinclined to the idea of the origin of species through descent, whether in gradual development or in leaps; and that in this respect he could no longer be counted among the advocates of the group above referred to, but among those which we mention farther on, had he not repeatedly and forcibly confessed, with a modesty worthy of acknowledgment, his total ignorance concerning the manner in which certain forms of life, especially the higher ones, originated. The origin of higher species without the supposition of a descent is to him unexplainable, because the individuals of these species are, in their first development of life, so dependent on the mother.