is, after all, the narrative of a creative power which acts by its own absolute will without the intervention of intermediate or secondary means. If it be so, we shall indeed be driven to conclude that this narrative of creation is incompatible with the doctrine of scientific evolution. The doctrine of evolution, in whatever form it may be cast, is built on the recognition of the fact that the world was formed through the agency of material means, and any system of creation which denies the intervention of such means is shut out on the threshold from all comparison with it, and from all possibility of alliance.

But is it so? Is the doctrine of creation, as exhibited in the first chapter of Genesis, the doctrine of an absolute Power acting by His own. mandate, and dispensing with the use of any intermediate agency? We have no hesitation in saying that this is not the view of the subject which the writer of the first chapter of Genesis intends to convey. We admit, indeed, that his language would at first suggest such an impression of his meaning, but it is not difficult to explain why his language must have done so. Let us remember that, however much he may have been above the level of his contemporaries, this man, after all, was a Hebrew. Let us remember that, to the Hebrew race from the very beginning of their religious history, the presence of God was a universal

presence. His God was not a being who came forth only in great catastrophes, and revealed Himself only in striking judgments; He acted everywhere and always, in the little alike as in the great, in the falling of a sparrow as powerfully as in the shaking of an empire. Hence for every event of life, however it might be produced, the Hebrew had one formula, "God said." He saw in everything the product of the will, the work of the hand, of God; and he admitted the co-operation of no second cause.1 But that is a very different thing from saying that he recognised the action of no material agency. The Hebrew acknowledged no second causes-not because he denied the action of material agencies, but because he held these agencies themselves to be only the instruments of God; he refused to recognise their co-operation, but he never for a moment doubted their service. So far was the Hebrew from denying that the will of God could operate through material servants, that, in point of fact, he did not admit any other form of Divine operation. He did not acknowledge that God ever did reveal Himself directly to the human soul. It was only through His agents that God ever spoke to man. When He desired to commune with the human, He had to make the winds His messengers, and the flaming fires His ministers. That the Eternal should meet face to

1 See this especially illustrated in Psalm xxix.

face with His creatures, was a thought which the Hebrew could not conceive. No man could see God and live, nor could the course of history progress in the unveiled presence of God. To meet the face of man, to conduct the events of history, the Eternal had to veil His presence-had to clothe Himself in the garments of time-had to speak in the language of men,-had to employ the agency of material things.

It will be seen from this that the modern conception of evolution, as expressed in the definition of Mr Herbert Spencer, does not necessarily differ from the ancient view of creation as regards the agency of material means. The system of Mr Spencer looks upon the process of evolution as something which is effected through the operation of physical forces; the system of creation delineated by the writer of Genesis, does not contain anything which either expressly or implicitly precludes the operation of such forces. Thus far our investigation has already led us. must ask if, from a study of the document before us, we are not entitled to go further. We have said that there is nothing in the first chapter of Genesis which precludes the view of the evolution principle that the formation of the world is effected through the intervention of material forces; does an examination of this chapter not warrant us to say more? We have seen that in other parts of

H

But now we

the Hebrew Scriptures the action of God in the affairs of men is uniformly represented as a mediate action, as something which works through finite instruments. If we look at the narrative of this chapter, we shall find that the initial and creative act of God is no exception to the rule. It is a mistake to imagine that, even in form, the Hebrew narrative of creation is simply the record of a work which was effected without agencies by the imperative mandate of an omnipotent will. As a matter of fact, the mandate is not the first thing, but the agency. Before God says, "Let there be light," it is very significantly stated that the Spirit or breath of God moved upon the face of the waters. We say that the statement is significant, because it implies more than it expresses. introduces at the very beginning something which is intermediate between the Worker and His work; and, by introducing this intermediate agency at the beginning, it evidently designs to signify that its action was to pervade the whole creation from its opening to its closing day. It evidently intends to suggest that the world was not produced merely by the word of God's mouth, nor by the mandate of His will, but that it owed its being to the co-operation of His will with the action of certain forces which the breath of His Spirit had set into motion.

It

For this leads us to ask, What was this primitive,

intermediate agency which, according to the Book of Genesis, originated the present system of things? We should naturally have expected that this very ancient and unscientific document, if it had intended to allow God's creative act to operate through any intermediate agency, would have declared this agency to be matter. But the agency which is postulated by the Book of Genesis is not matter, but force,-" The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters." This ancient assertion sounds singularly modern and specially Spencerian. Mr Herbert Spencer himself holds that the origin of all things is force, or that which has power to produce movement. It may be said, indeed, that Mr Spencer's force is physical, while that evoked by the writer of Genesis is confessedly spiritual. It must be remembered, however, that in the view of Mr Spencer force is not physical at all; it is, in its ultimate nature, perfectly inscrutable. We speak popularly of material forces. The expression is not inapplicable when it is intended to describe the movements of matter;

but when it

is used to indicate the cause of that motion, it is, in the view of Mr Spencer, a simple metaphor. Mr Spencer does not admit that we have yet discovered the agent of what we call physical motion, and least of all does he admit that we have discovered this agent in matter. Nor does Mr Spencer stand alone in claiming for the idea of force an