OF EVOLUTIONISTS.

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they are not Atheists. Because they admit a creative and sustaining power in nature they imagine that they recognise a Deity,-although they deny Him the power to vary in the smallest degree from an inexorable fate.

A third sort of Evolutionists are those who believe that GOD has established a settled order of Nature, but do not deny that it is in His power to vary from it. Evolutionists of this sort may be very good Christians: only, as philosophers, they have a tendency to dwell more on the order of Nature, while the ordinary Christian dwells most on GoD's Providence. The Christian be

lieves that GOD has ordained a law which shall not be broken." The earth, the moon, and planets, go on in their appointed course; the seasons come and go in regular succession; the tides keep their regular time. All this the Christian knows full well. He knows that they were all constituted in their regular order by GoD's appointment, and that they do not vary from it,except at His command. As they were first ordained by His Will, so at His Will they may be changed. The Christian looks upon the natural world as a vast household,-and GOD, as He has indeed condescended to represent Himself, as a householder. The household is well arranged and regulated by a fixed order, and in the main goes on in one settled way. Nevertheless this

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LAWS OF NATURE.

does not prevent a change when some new arrangement has become necessary. In particular if any one of the household transgresses this appointed rule, and will not conform to the regulations of the house, the master remonstrates with him, and informs him of his duty, and if he will not obey he is dismissed. As none of the members of the household are perfect characters, the master has to treat all of them in turn with kindness or severity. And yet as a rule the household goes on with general uniformity. This will represent the Law of Order established by the Great Ruler of the Universe,—a Law which shall not be broken, as we see it is not by the unconscious members of creation, but which is too often transgressed by those who have liberty of action. And therefore it requires the constant intervention of Almighty power to remedy and correct the evils which have been introduced by the wilfulness of free and intelligent beings.

I do not see that the doctrine of Evolution confined within due limits is not properly open to the researches of philosophers. But when they so treat it as to exclude the belief in a Providence, then it comes to be simply irreligion and Atheism. On very slender foundation they have raised an ambitious structure which it will not bear. They tell us that the whole animal race was gradually developed out of the lowest possible order of ex

IMPROBABILITY OF EVOLUTION.

185

istence. Well, if they can prove it let them. I confess it appears to me that the most probable opinion even philosophically speaking is that GOD created the various orders of animals at the time when the earth was fitted for their reception. For instance, it appears to me more likely that God created sheep and oxen when the earth emerged from the deep, and was clothed in its new vegetation, rather than that the seals and porpoises walked out of the sea, and gradually took to grazing on dry land, though I do not say that this point is positively settled one way or the other in the Bible. But this I do say, that the notion of intellectual man, born in the image of GOD, being developed out of a brute, appears to me the most irrational and profane notion which ever entered into the mind of man. But when philosophers have once got a theory into their head, they pursue it with relentless pertinacity without stopping at any obstacle, and regardless of the absurdities to which it may lead them.

CHAPTER XIX.

PSYCHOLOGY A VAIN THING APART FROM RELIGION.-THE MIND NOT MATERIAL.-INSTANCES GIVEN.-PROFESSOR HUXLEY AND DR. CARPENTER DIFFER ON THE SUBJECT. -BOTH DIFFER FROM THE TRUTH.-INFLUENCE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT.

Or all the vain, futile, unsatisfactory fancies, which go under the name of science, none is more vain and futile than Psychology—that is, apart from Religion. Of course Psychology or the Science of the Soul on Christian principles is of the greatest value; but to leave out religion is like the play of "Hamlet" with Hamlet omitted; or like leaving out the spring from the year; or as if a man were to set out on a voyage round the world without chart or compass. I am speaking of those psychologists who consider "mind to be resolvable into nervous shocks, and that these nervous shocks answer to the waves of molecular motion that traverse nerves and nerve centres," and who consequently "seek materialistic explanations of mental phenomena;" and suppose that "the actions of men, so far as they are recog

MR. SPENCER'S PSYCHOLOGY.

187

nizable by science, are the results of molecular changes in the matter of which they are composed." Instead of believing that the senses, and the nerves, and the brain are, so to speak, purveyors to the mind, they imagine that thought is the resultant from these material organs. These views held, I fear, by not a few modern philosophers, are purely Atheistic, and make men mere machines instead of rational beings. "All actions," says Mr. Bray, "are equally necessary, that is, they are the result of antecedent irresistible force or cause.' "9

Mr. Herbert Spencer in his "Principles of Psychology," has, perhaps, without intending it, placed the matter on its true basis. "To reduce the general question to its simplest form," he says, "Psychical changes either conform to law or they do not. If they do not conform to law, this work, in common with all works on the subject, is sheer nonsense: no science of psychology is possible. If they do conform to law, there cannot be any such thing as free will." So if there is any such thing as free will in the world, the science of psychology is "sheer nonsense." This is true enough. I must say, however, that it is hardly fair in Mr. Herbert Spencer not to let his readers know sooner than the 220th Section, that his treatise is based on the sup

1 Principles of Psychology. Sec. 220.