" Shall
we quarrel with Science if she should show how those words are true?
What, in one word, should we have to say but this?--We knew of old
that God was so wise that He could make all things; but behold, He
is so much wiser than even that, that He can make all things make
themselves.
But it may be said: These notions are contrary to Scripture. I
must beg very humbly, but very firmly, to demur to that opinion.
Scripture says that God created. But it nowhere defines that term.
The means, the How of Creation, is nowhere specified. Scripture,
again, says that organised beings were produced each according to
their kind. But it nowhere defines that term. What a kind
includes, whether it includes or not the capacity of varying (which
is just the question in point), is nowhere specified. And I think
it a most important rule in scriptural exegesis, to be most cautious
as to limiting the meaning of any term which Scripture itself has
not limited, lest we find ourselves putting into the teaching of
Scripture our own human theories or prejudices. And consider, Is
not man a kind? And has not mankind varied, physically,
intellectually, spiritually? Is not the Bible, from beginning to
end, a history of the variations of mankind, for worse or for
better, from their original type?
Let us rather look with calmness, and even with hope and good will,
on these new theories; for, correct or incorrect, they surely mark a
tendency toward a more, not a less, scriptural view of nature.
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