who plays ill is
checkmated--without haste, but without remorse.

"My metaphor," he continues, "will remind some of you of the famous
picture in which Retzsch has depicted Satan playing at chess with
man for his soul. Substitute for the mocking fiend in that picture
a calm, strong angel, who is playing for love, as we say, and would
rather lose than win--and I should accept it as an image of human
life."[1]

[Footnote 1: Huxley: Lay Sermons and Addresses, p. 31.]

This is a marvellous illustration, and in general as true as it is
beautiful and grand. But that "calm, strong angel who is playing for
love, as we say, and would rather lose than win," is certainly a
very strange antagonist. Is it, after all, possible that our
clear-eyed scientific man has altogether misunderstood the game? Is
not the "calm, strong angel" more probably our partner? Certainly
very many things point that way. And who are our antagonists? Look
within yourself and you will always find at least a pair ready to
take a hand against you, to say nothing of the possibilities of
environment. "Rex regis rebellis." Our partner is trying by every
method, except perhaps by "talking across the board," to teach us
the laws and methods of this great game. And calls and signals are
always allowable. The game is not finished in one hand; he gives us
a second and third, and repeats the signals, and never misleads.
Only when we carelessly or obstinately refuse to learn, and wilfully
lose the game beyond all hope, does he leave us to meet our losses
as best we may.

Let us carry the illustration a step farther. Who knows that the
game was, or could be, at first taught without talking across the
board? I can find nothing in science to compel such a belief, many
things render it improbable. Grant a personality in environment to
which personality in man is to conform and gain likeness.
Environment can act on the digestive and muscular systems through
mere material. But how can personality in environment act on
personality in man except by personal contact or by symbols easy of
comprehension according to its own laws? Some method of attaining
acquaintance at least we should certainly expect.

But some of you may ask, How can any theory of evolution guarantee
that anything of the present shall survive in the future? It is
continually changing and destroying former types. The old order of
everything changes and passes away, giving place to the new. But is
this