origin outside the boundaries of what we designate matter. It is not too much to say that he is followed in this view by the majority of evolutionists, and that his majority is constantly increasing. Science has been called materialistic; yet science in its most advanced form does not even allow to matter those powers which are commonly supposed to be peculiarly its own. In one sense the modern

doctrine of evolution comes nearer to the theological standpoint than most of its scientific predecessors. The theologian believes that matter has no powers of its own, that all its properties have been impressed upon it by an omnipotent Will. The modern evolutionist also believes that matter has no powers of its own; and although, as a man of science, he will not commit himself to assign to these powers an origin, he confesses, along with the theologian, that they are impressed upon matter from a source which transcends experience.

The statement of the Book of Genesis, that the formative principle of the universe was movement, is, in that early age, a very remarkable doctrine. That movement should have preceded the existence of light is not a natural supposition, not a supposition in accordance with the appearance of things. Yet this is one of the few statements of antiquity concerning the constitution of physical nature which modern science has not reversed. As a matter of fact, we now know not only that

movement preceded the existence of light, but that light would never have had any existence if movement had not preceded it; that light owes its ultimate origin neither to the sun nor to any other luminary, but to those movements or vibrations of ether which are necessary to the existence of all suns and of all luminaries. And what is scientifically true of light is scientifically true of matter as a whole. It seems to us, that so far is matter from being able to explain its own movement, that the movement is itself required to account for the existence of matter. All matter presupposes force as a condition of its being. If matter possesses force inherently, where does it lie? Does it lie in the masses of solid bodies? These masses are themselves kept together by a force of cohesion; force is the cause, and not the effect, of their being. Does it lie in those minute atoms which are supposed to constitute the ultimate material elements? We maintain that even these presuppose the existence of force. If an atom has any size at all, its magnitude is just as much held together by a force of cohesion as is the magnitude of the densest masses; and if it is altogether without size, then matter has vanished away and force reigns supreme. On these grounds we are constrained to hold that the earliest and most representative statement of the doctrine of creation has in one of its main positions been borne out and homologated by the latest view of the doctrine of evolution.

Alike in the system of Mr Herbert Spencer and in the system of him who wrote the first chapter of the Book of Genesis, the primal agency from which the world originated was not matter but movement. The difference between them does not lie here; it lies in their view of that agency which moves. Mr Spencer, admitting, as he does and must, that movement requires a mover, is yet unwilling to commit himself to a definition of that power whose existence and action he acknowledges; the writer of Genesis, influenced, perhaps, by the reflection that the power exhibited by nature is an exhibition of his own image, is not afraid to define the agency which creates that power as a spiritual intelligence manifesting the attributes of personality and revealing the prerogatives of will.

Let us now return to Mr Spencer's definition of evolution. We have seen that in two respects it does not differ from that conception which is commonly called the system of creation. In holding the formation of the earth to have been not an act but a process, it is in harmony with that old narrative of Genesis which, in spite of the writer's natural temptation to accelerate the action of God, was not ashamed to represent Him as working out His purpose by slow and progressive stages. In holding, again, that the process by which the formation was effected was the subjection of matter to the action of certain movements,

it is once more in harmony with a narrative which places at the basis of all things the movement of a mighty force, by which the earth was fashioned into order in the fulness of the days.

But if we resume a study of Mr Spencer's definition, we shall find that the parallel between them is yet more pronounced and significant. What is the nature of that transition which, according to Mr Spencer, the earth undergoes under the action of the formative force? Let us quote his own words. He says, "Evolution is an integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of motion, during which the matter passes from an indefinite incoherent homogeneity to a definite coherent heterogeneity." There are three things which, in the view of Mr Spencer, are here said to have constituted the characteristics of the primitive or unformed matter of the earth. First, it was indefinite; it was of such a confused nature that nothing could be affirmed concerning it. Secondly, it was incoherent: its parts did not cling together; they wanted the bond of connection which now makes them one. Thirdly, it was homogeneous: it had no distinction in its qualities; all its present varieties constituted originally one liquid mass, which at once enclosed and concealed its future possibilities. Now, if we turn to the first chapter of Genesis, we shall not fail to be struck with the fact that the primitive matter of the earth

is there represented as having occupied a similar, if not an identical position. Here, too, we have three distinct affirmations made as to the state of the unformed world. We are first told that it was without form; in other words, that it was indefinite-that its various parts had not been so limited as to render their proportions discernible. We are next informed that it was void; in other words, that it was incoherent—that its various parts had not been so joined as to make them a solid unity. We are finally made aware that it was comprehensible under a single name, the deep; in other words, that it was homogeneous-that its various parts were prevented from displaying their variety by the fact that each and all of them were enveloped in a mass of water.

These, then, according to the Book of Genesis, were the primitive elements of the unformed world, and the elements out of which that world was to be constructed. Let us ask now, not what was to be the process of construction, but what was to be the plan of construction. The process lies as much beyond the discerning power of the evolutionist as it transcends the mind of him who adheres to the system of creationism. But evolution in the person of Mr Herbert Spencer has traced out retrospectively the work actually achieved, and he has expressed the result in the very formula of his definition. He finds that the primitive matter