not say, on that account: God did not
create me; I only grew. We hold in this case to our old idea, and
say: If there be evolution, there must be an evolver. Now the new
physical theories only ask us, it seems to me, to extend this
conception to the whole universe: to believe that not individuals
merely, but whole varieties and races, the total organised life on
this planet, and it may be the total organisation of the universe,
have been evolved just as our bodies are, by natural laws acting
through circumstance. This may be true, or may be false. But all
its truth can do to the natural theologian will be to make him
believe that the Creator bears the same relation to the whole
universe as that Creator undeniably bears to every individual human
body.

I entreat you to weigh these words, which have not been written in
haste; and I entreat you also, if you wish to see how little the new
theory, that species may have been gradually created by variation,
natural selection, and so forth, interferes with the old theory of
design, contrivance, and adaptation, nay, with the fullest admission
of benevolent final causes--I entreat you, I say, to study Darwin's
"Fertilisation of Orchids"--a book which (whether his main theory be
true or not) will still remain a most valuable addition to natural
theology.

For suppose, gentlemen, that all the species of Orchids, and not
only they, but their congeners--the Gingers, the Arrowroots, the
Bananas--are all the descendants of one original form, which was
most probably nearly allied to the Snowdrop and the Iris. What
then? Would that be one whit more wonderful, more unworthy of the
wisdom and power of God, than if they were, as most believe, created
each and all at once, with their minute and often imaginary shades
of difference? What would the natural theologian have to say, were
the first theory true, save that God's works are even more wonderful
than he always believed them to be? As for the theory being
impossible: we must leave the discussion of that to physical
students. It is not for us clergymen to limit the power of God.
"Is anything too hard for the Lord?" asked the prophet of old: and
we have a right to ask it as long as time shall last. If it be said
that natural selection is too simple a cause to produce such
fantastic variety: that, again, is a question to be settled
exclusively by physical students. All we have to say on the matter
is, that we always kne