the idea of evolution and the doctrine of a special creation. It is here that we are met by the theory which seems to decide the question against creationism almost without need of argument— the theory of the unity of species. This is the doctrine which commonly goes by the name of Darwinism, but which under this name seems to us to give a very limited view of the real scope of the evolutionist. Darwinism only professes to find the unity of life; evolution in its completed form aspires to find the unity of all things. The doctrine of the unity of species would at present be better indicated by the name of Spencerism than by that of Darwinism, for it is in the hands of Mr. Spencer that it has assumed its largest proportions and sought to embrace in its law all existing things. The oneness of species which it here seeks is not simply the oneness of a germ-cell which may contain the seed common to the life of the plant, the animal, and the man; it is a unity which shall embrace within itself not only the life of the human, the animal, and the vegetable, but the life of all the products of nature in every department and in every variety. Such is the bold and far-reaching scheme which the doctrine of evolution ultimately contemplates, and to the prosecution and confirmation of which the science of our day is devoting its attention. We shall here pass by on the other side the consideration of what success it may or

may not have as yet achieved; we shall leave the determination of that to the judgment of the specialists. What we wish to consider is, the effect which would be produced upon theology by the establishment of such a doctrine. We wish to inquire whether, in the event of there being discovered the principle of unity which is here sought for, there would necessarily or logically follow any diminution of man's faith in the supernatural. We wish to ask calmly and dispassionately, and in the absence of all party interest, whether the contemplated reduction of the varieties of nature to a single species would, in the event of its being accomplished, impel the human mind to relinquish that belief in the superintendence of a guiding Power which in all the ages of history has been the support of the life of man.

In conducting this inquiry there are two questions which prominently rise before us, and which must be dealt with separately and consecutively. We must first ask whether, in the attempt to reduce all things to a principle of unity, the doctrine of evolution is in any sense peculiar, -whether it is really doing anything which in point of fact is not done by every other doctrine. Should we come on this subject to a negative answer, we shall have separated the aim of the evolutionist from any necessary alliance with an irreligious tendency. When we have decided this

point, we must next go on to ask whether the establishment of a belief in the absolute unity of species would tend logically to destroy our belief in the continued action of that Intelligence which is held to have been the primal Force in the creation of the world; in other words, whether the doctrine of evolution is in any respect less susceptible of union with the doctrine of a special creation, than we have found it to be susceptible of union with the doctrine of creation in general.

The first question, then, which meets us is this, Is the theory of the evolutionist peculiar in attempting to find for all things a common basis of unity? There is a popular impression that it is so. It is commonly believed that the doctrine of evolution, in its effort to reduce the many to the one, is performing an act distinctly revolutionary. There is a more widespread opinion still, that in this search for a unifying principle which shall reconcile the varieties of things, the evolutionist of our day is engaged in a work distinctively modern. The truth is, he is engaged precisely in that work which from the beginning of time. has occupied the mind of every thoughtful man. There is not an age of the world's history, there is not a department of the world's intellectual life, in which the problem has not been identical with the problem which now exercises the scientific

mind - how to find that principle which shall make the many one. Go where we may in our study of human thought, we shall in all times and in all conditions be confronted by the same intellectual question which confronts us in the nineteenth century-the question whether it be possible to discover a single element of original life or being which may once have constituted the origin of all the various forms of life and all the diverse shades of being which now meet us in the universe.

The aim of the most ancient philosophy-the philosophy of Greece was identical from the beginning with the aim of modern science. The earliest form of that philosophy is the school of Ionia, and the school of Ionia is based on the effort to discover an original principle from which all other things have taken their birth. Thales attempted to find the first principle of the universe in water, Anaximenes in air, Heraclitus in fire, and Anaximander in what he called the infinite, or that which was without shape or boundary. These attempts were fantastic enough; but that which concerns us here is the fact that they were attempts, the fact that men in a comparatively primitive age should have busied themselves with exactly the same problem which engages the attention of the modern scientist, and should in anticipation of the modern scientist have ventured

to entertain the idea that the many forms of nature were reducible to a single substance.

As we pass from the school of Ionia to the more developed forms of the Greek philosophy, we encounter systems differing widely from one another in their standpoint and in their doctrine, and presenting in many instances the aspect of direct contradiction. But through all these varieties and through all these contradictions there is one respect in which they are harmonious and agreed; they each and all of them aim at the solution of the same problem-the reduction of the many to the one. Pythagoras comes forward and tells us that the first principle of all things is number. Here, we should think at the outset, is a theory which would give the quietus to every effort after the discovery of a unity in nature. If there is one idea which more than another suggests infinite variety, it is the idea of number; it opens up to the imagination such a succession of possible existences, that the imagination is itself at last bewildered and compelled to relinquish the task of conceiving. One would have thought that the man who made number the cause of all things had in the very statement of his theory abandoned the search for the unity of species. Nevertheless it is in the idea of number that Pythagoras finds the unity of species-nay, it is for the sake of finding that unity that he has adopted this theory. He denies that,