If it be true that a certain amount of information on the
subject of creation is contained in revelation, it must have been so
contained for a specific purpose--a purpose to be attained at some stage
or other of the history of mankind. It is possible also that the study
will bring to light a probable, or at any rate a possible, explanation
of some of those apparent (if they are not real) "dead-locks" which
occur in pursuing the course of life history on the earth.
Such considerations will naturally have more weight with the Christian
believer than with those who reject the faith. But at least the
advantage of them remains with the believer, till the contrary is shown.
The extreme evolutionist may cling to the belief that at some future
time he will be able to account for the entrance of LIFE into the
world's history, that he will be able to explain the connection of MIND
with MATTER; or he may hope that the sterility of certain hybrid forms
will one day be explained away, and so on. But till these things _are_
got over, the believer cannot be reproached as holding an unreasonable
belief when his creed maintains that Life is a gift and prerogative of a
great Author of Life; that Mind is the result of a spiritual environment
which is a true, though physically intangible, part of nature; and that
the absence of any proof that variation and development cross
certain--perhaps not very clearly ascertained, but indubitably
existing--lines, points to the designed fixing of certain types, and the
restriction of developmental creation to running in certain lines of
causation up to those types, and not otherwise.
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