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fessing Christians, on purely philosophical grounds, that God is not an abstraction or a mere negation, but is rather a most positive Reality, a reality without which nothing else can be real, and declaring that all their arguments are absurd. and elaborately suicidal.'”

In the following chapters Dr. Wilson takes up the Physical objections to the existence and government of God, discussing with equal force and perspicuity the theories of evolution and causation — the Metaphysical objections including the various theories of knowledge proofs of the reality of mind as an entity distinct from matter, and the limits to the certainty of Knowledge the Logical objections grounded on the forms of reasoning and the use of words, with a review of Kant's Theories-the Attributes and Personality of God, in which he insists that all the arguments and all the methods of argumentation by which we claim to prove the existence of God, prove also His Personality - Miracles and Inspiration, noting specially the miracles of Creation or Beginning, the Origin of Species, and the Origin of Man; and, in the matter of Inspiration, touching the difficulty of discriminating as to character, and making time and results the test of its reality-and lastly, Providence and Moral Government, a chapter of special interest for its independent thought, breadth of view, and the Christian character of its philosophy, as contrasted with the encouragement given to scepticism by some late attempts to compel nature and history into the service of the orthodox exegesis of Scripture.

It is the teaching of this last chapter which has chiefly attracted our attention, and which, coming from such a quarter, is entitled to more than an ordinary book notice. At the same time any one of the chapters would furnish ample material for a separate article, but we cannot afford the space. Only two or three points can be touched, and that briefly, before coming to the last.

1. Origin of Species. No origination of a new species is known to have occurred in the human period, nor in any past period of the world's history. Evolution, therefore, can be held only as an hypothesis, a conjecture awaiting proof, while facts and considerations of the most stubborn and unyielding character stand against it. The advocate of Evolution refers to the order of development from the Zoological point of view, and arranges the several species in that order, beginning with the lowest and running up to the highest; and even if there are breaks and "missing links," he insists that, give time enough, they will yet be discovered. But the difficulty with this

is that the geological or chronological order does not correspond to the zoological series. Dawson says, on page 260 of his "Chain of Life in Geological Times," that " Groups of species as genera and orders do not usually begin with their highest or lowest forms, but with intermediate and generalized types, and show a capacity for both elevation and degradation in their subsequent history." The following facts bear on this point:

"Let the Zoologist range his group in the order of the numbers from one up to as many thousands as he may happen to have, and it is seen at once from the Geologist's order of succession that these species did not make their appearance in the same order as the Zoologist's classification demands. Instead of their making their appearance in what is the Zoologist's order, 1, 2, 3, etc., they come in a very different order. It may be that he has made, and must make in fidel ity to his science, a succession in which what the Zoologist calls the first did not appear on earth until after what the Geologist has called the fifth, and the sixth of the Zoologist's order was not the next to make its appearance in the order of time, but was perhaps the fifteenth or twentieth rather. Hence we have to account for the changes, not from the first in the Zoological Series to the next one above it, but to one that is many degrees removed from it. In the vegetable world mosses are inferior to the lycopodia and ferns, but they come in later. Ganoids are among the earliest of the fishes, and yet they are of the highest orders. Trilobites are crustaceans of a high order, and yet they are among the very earliest. Monkeys, although much higher in the Geological scale, appear before the ox family.'

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"The Machairodus is an obstacle to any theory of mere evolution. It appeared in several species in widely separated districts, as Nebraska, (N. A.), Brazil, (S. A.), in France, in Greece, and as far east as India. It was of the cat family Felida, as large as any known lions or tigers, more 66 specialized" and perfect in form than most of the later species. It appeared early in the Tertiary at or near the close of the Eocene period, and with nothing before it in that great family from which it could have been derived by any process of mere evolution or development."

Dawson says Palæontology furnishes no direct evidence, perhaps it never can furnish any, as to the actual transformation of one species into another. And even Huxley, who, in his address in this country in 1876, trusting to Prof. Marsh's series of the Equidæ, boldly declared that the doctrine of evolution was as well established as the Copernican theory of the solar system, said two years later in his address in Dublin: "It is a difficult question, and one for which a complete answer may be looked for in the next century. In what

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sense I cannot tell you.. I have my own notion about it, but the question for the future is the attainment, by scientific processes and methods, of a solution of that question."

2. The time of Man's appearance on the earth, and his condition at that time.

On this point Dr. Wilson has cited learned authorities to show that the origin of man cannot date back of the Post Glacial times. Huxley says, in his Dublin address, 1878, "When it comes to a question as to tracing back man further (than the drift)-and recollect drift is only the scum of the earth's surface-I must confess that to my mind the evidence is of a very dubious character." Dr. Southall, Dawson and others calculate from present evidence that the time which has elapsed since the close of the Ice age, the period at which man first appears, is not more than eight or ten thousand years. The proofs are constantly accumulating that the close of the Glacial era comes down to a much later date than was assigned it a few years ago.

And then, as regards the man of that period, Dawson says the evidence available at present shows the man of the Post Glacial age of Geology "with all the powers and properties" of the man of to-day. Nicholson's statement is that such information as we have would lead to the conclusion that Post-Pliocene man was in no respect inferior in his organization to, or less highly developed than, many existing All the known skulls of that period, with the single exception iof the Neanderthal cranium, are in all respects average and normal in their character. Dr. Wilson says, in parenthesis, that the Neanderthal skull "is now acknowledged to have been abnormal and idiotic." And even Huxley "don't know that there is any reason for doubting that the men who existed at that day were in all essential respects similar to the men who exist now."

races.

Dawson states that "the skeletons of the most ancient known men indicate a people of great stature, of powerful muscular development, especially in the lower limbs; of large brain, indicating great capacity and resources."— Chain of Life, p. 241.

We may add here that the Siberian elephants, which have been encased in ice for eight or ten thousand years, are as well formed, as perfect in every respect, as their kindred of to-day. Evolution has done as little for them as for man since the close of the Ice age. Man and the elephant at least seem to have started out at the beginning as complete, physically and anatomically, as those of the present age.

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As regards the doctrine of Evolution we have no theory to defend. We neither accept nor reject it altogether. We do not interpret its teaching as excluding God from the universe. It may show us His method of working in some things, but it does not furnish a sufficient cause for the beginning of things. As Mr. Wilson says, "the word evolution is only a term to denote a process, and the process itself is no adequate explanation of anything."

3. We come now to the argument on " Providence and Moral Government," which is in such marked contrast, both in spirit and in aim, to Prof. Townsend's chapter on "Divine Goodness and Severity." Dr. Wilson does not invite the aid of Pessimists and Atheists in support of his orthodoxy; nor does he recklessly fling stumbling blocks in the path of the troubled believer who is struggling with doubts and difficulties, and trying to keep his faith in the infinite wisdom and goodness of the God of Nature and of the Bible.

Townsend's "Bible Theology and Modern Thought" attempts to prove that Nature and History reveal the same kind of a God which Orthodoxy teaches; and by numerous citations from scientists and sceptics seeks to show that He is just as cruel and relentless and destructive in the material world, in history, and the ordering of human life, as in the endless torments inflicted on the damned. Let the reader turn to the article on this subject in the last July QUARTERLY. Dr. Wilson's book covers substantially the same ground of argument, so far as concerns the divine character and government; but he insists that the facts show that what seems evil is not wholly evil, that suf fering and pain are not ordained for their own sake, but with a view to the good which may come out of them, the beneficent uses which they may serve. And he cites the sceptic as being compelled to this admission in his better moments. Even John Stuart Mill, who has said so many bitter things concerning Nature which "never turns one step from her path to avoid trampling us into destruction," as quoted by Townsend, declares in his happier moods, according to Wilson, that "as manifest in nature and human experience, goodness or benevolence is on the whole predominant over other motives of a different kind. The pleasures and the pains have a conservative tendency, the pleasures being so disposed as to attach to the things which maintain existence, the pains so as to deter from such as would destroy it." He quotes him further, on page 347;

"Yet endeavoring to look at the question without partiality or prejudice and without allowing wishes to have any influence over

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judgment, it does appear that granting the existence of design, there is a preponderance of evidence that the Creator desired the pleasure of His creatures. Even in cases where the pain results, like pleasure, from the machinery itself, the appearances do not indicate that contrivance was brought into play purposely to produce pain; there is, therefore, much appearance that pleasure is agreeable to the Creator, while there is very little if any appearance that pain is so, and there is a certain amount of justification for inferring, on the ground of Natural Theology alone, that benevolence is one of the attributes of the Creator."

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This is a good deal for Mill to say. who is the leading representative of pessimism among the English, and probably presents all the objections to a Divine Providence and moral government that the case admits of. Pain is no proof that God is cruel, and the arrangements of the material world, the penalties of violated law do not militate against His benevolence. They, therefore, who would exclude pain from the universe," says Dr. Wilson, "would exclude wrong doing and with it the possibility of the highest excellence and crowning glory of the universe." And again, "Not only pain, but even wicked men, have a work to do in a world where wickedness and wrong exist, which no other class can so fitly do. Although not intending it and not conscious of the fact, they are doing God's will and are in some cases the fittest instruments for doing it under the circumstances." Why sin is in the world I do not know, and shall make no attempt to explain. I shall not even offer a conjecture. But it is here; and we can see much good that is accomplished by it, which, so far as we can see, could no more have been accomplished without sin and suffering than man could have been made to study into, learn, respect and use those laws of nature which make up our science and make us masters of the world, subjecting all things in it to our use, without the pain that follows upon violation."

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Our author enlarges upon this theme, and emphasizes the fact that the providence and moral government of God are continually shaping evil and suffering into some form of good. He says again, “The way in which, both in history and in individual life, God brings good out of evil and makes even the wrath of man to praise Him,' is to me one of the most striking proofs of Providence working for a purpose in history and in the exercise of moral government."

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How different this treatment of the subject from that which joins hands with the Atheist and Pessimist in defending a creed at the expense of Religion itself. Truly, as our Episcopalian friend says,

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