The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1885-06-30

intelligence: and to include 1t sinoothes the way
TO investigation, and is agreeable to the nature
of the human mind. Tt Is easier TO conceive OF
the personal being with intelligence will and
power, than ii is 10 conceive of world Of such
vast and varied substance as this performing all
the functions of intelligence and will and power
The doctrine of evolution at FIRST sight seems
to destroy the fact OF intelligent design in crea-
ton. and IN its earlier stages left the man that
investigated it very doubtful whether there was
anything in creation but matter or whether
there was movable God So the agnostic
school, which includes in it some of
she noolest spirits OF our day. sprang up God
may exist, but we do not know it. That is what
the Bible says from beginning to end: that is
what philosophy is now beginning to explain.
We can not understand the divine nature, so
exalted above anything that has yet been de-
yeoped in human consciousness, except it dawns
upon US when are ourselves unfolded and
rise to such higher operation Of our own minds
as does not belong to the great mass of the
human race. God is to be seen only by those
faculties that verge upon the divine itself and
to that mora intuition does come with a
eainty as great any scientific investigation
proves to the senses Of men. But the question
OF design in creation which has been a stable
argument for the proof Of the existence OF God
and his attributes-that seems to have
been shaken from its basis for long
time. 1t is being restored in larger
and greater way. 1t only places the fact
upon wider space and makes the outcome
more wonderful. Special creation and the adap
tation in consequence of it, the structure to
IN animals and in the vegetable kingdom to their
surroundings, is remarkable-how things fit to
their places-how all the regular subordinations
and developments that are going on, how fit they
are to succeed one another. Now, the old theory
conceived God as creating things for special
uses. When the idea of the lily dawned on Him,
He smiled and said, Il will make them" and
he made them to be just as beautiful as they
are; and when the to be added. like an
artist, God thought just how it should be all the
way through. That is the old view, that some
plants were made to DO without water and could
live in parching suns, and that some could live
only in the tropics, and that thus God adapted
all his creation to the climate and the soil and
the circumstances, and it was beautiful thing
to see how things did fit by the divine wisdom
the place where they were
Now, evolution comes and shows that things
are fitted to the place where they are in conse-
quence of the fact that all that won't fit to the
place perish. How beautiful it is to plant
growing right under the cheek of precipice, or
snow-bed, or by the edges of winter through
tie year. Men say how beautiful the thought
was that God should create life in vegetables and
flowers right alongside as If it were to cheer the
bosom of winter; whereas it turns out that any
thing that could not live there died, and by and
by there were some plants so tough that they
could i've there, and they did, and the adapta-
ton was the remainder to long series of perish
ings. Men say what a remarkable instance OF
divine design that the cactus can live on arid
deserts where water scarcely falls more than
once or twice year, and what special creation
and adaptation it was on the part OF God that Ill
should make such plants as that. But the eyo-
lutonist comes and says that the plants were
killed in succession, and it was until it happened
In the endless variations In the vegetable king
dom there was plant whose structure was
covered with leather and whose leaves were
substantially little cisterns and they drank up
all they wanted to use through the summer, ard
so continue to live contrary to their surround
ings where others could not live, because they
AK41d 1Af fcn6 Gn1x fhn 0rsCrV ant
for special design fails there, as we used to
hold it.
Through long periods all things adapted them
selves to their necessary conditions, and what
could not, perish. For the theory of evolution
is much a theory of destruction and degrade
ton. AS the carpenter has vast shavings and a
vast amount of wastings off every log which he
would shape to some use, so creation has been
an enormous waSte-waSte of time-but such
seems like squandering on the scale of human
life but not to Him that dwells in eternity; and
in bringing things to their present conditions.
a vast amount of things have lived for
and let go and persisted, and the things
that have been suited to their environ
ment. as the modern phrase is-to their sur
roundingS and conditions, the old English would
have had it-these things continued to survive
by a law of variation, which is everywhere in
activity; this great law. that like tends to pro
duce ike yet always with a variation more or
less.
Now in the history Of organic creation, there
Is this wonderful prodigaity of God, namely
that there is such an enormous fruitfulness In
seed and in animal life that if it were not in
some way or otner depopulated, wasted, that 1t
would choke itself to death anyhow There
are enough seeds in Canada thistle, if let alone
for 100 years, to ezterminate every other veget-
able on the face of the globe. Some one has
said, III a revelatory extravaganza, that so pro-
life is the Goldfish that if all the fish that are
spawned, which amount to several millions,
of a single ancestor-~lf every one of them lived
and in turn every one of them should
spawn again, it would scarcely be ten
years before a man could walk on the back
of fishes from Europe to America Although
this may not be set down as philosophically cor
rect, it will have the effect on popular compre-
henson of showing what enormous increase
takes place Now, according this othe1 erin-
ciple, namely, the prodigality of production,
shows that the earth could not hold it, there is
the destruction going on which comes from the
fact that the strongest things in creation hold
their way, and the weak things have to perish
The law of fitness, it is Called the law of Sc
lection as Mr. Spencer calls it, and those things
in this variation that have some advantage over
those that are their ancestral forms, survive; if
there be change of climate, as there has been
many change of heat. or of cold, or of moisture,
or of dryness, those things that are feeblest in
the presence of the others varying towards
strength and fitness, those things perish the
way and the strongest survive. In other words
established the principle that by the law of evo-
luton there is a steady progress from weakness
towards strength, from right beginning
to fitness and adaptation, that there
is an organic tendency to the whole
created world to better itself in strength, in
. function, in completely, in beauty, in every way
in admircbeness. BY this law, therefore. of
variation, things are, I had almost said, of
themselves, working steadily onward and up
ward. and everywhere they are fitting them
selves, by the variations that are taking place in
them, to their conditions, outwardly and inward
ly. or else they perish; and the law, therefore,
n ad has hoe Had
in the old theology, the law of design, showing
that these fit things mark our Gods nature in
telligence, skill, goodness, that particular form
of design fails under scientific investigation.
But now, what do we see2 Behold the on
flowing through unreasonable ages of creation
of this mcmillan tendencv vary and so,na