ffects on the whole
structure of society. With one class of minds they constitute a sort of
religion, which so far satisfies the craving for truth higher than those
which relate to immediate wants and pleasures. With another and perhaps
larger class, they are accepted as affording a welcome deliverance from
all scruples of conscience and fears of a hereafter. In the domain of
science evolutionism has like tendencies. It reduces the position of
man, who becomes a descendant of inferior animals, and a mere term in a
series whose end is unknown. It removes from the study of nature the
ideas of final cause and purpose; and the evolutionist, instead of
regarding the world as a work of consummate plan, skill, and adjustment,
approaches nature as he would a chaos of fallen rocks, which may present
forms of castles, and grotesque profiles of men and animals, but they
are all fortuitous and without significance." (pp. 317, 318)

"Taking, then, this broad view of the subject, two great leading
alternatives are presented to us. Either man is an independent product
of the will of a Higher Intelligence, acting directly or through the
laws and materials of his own institution and production, or he has been
produced by an unconscious evolution from lower things. It is true that
many evolutionists, either unwilling to offend, or not perceiving the
logical consequences of their own hypothesis, endeavor to steer a middle
course, and to maintain that the Creator has proceeded by way of
evolution. But the bare, hard logic of Spencer, the greatest English
authority on evolution, leaves no place for this compromise, and shows
that the theory, carried out to its legitimate consequences, excludes
the knowledge of a Creator and the possibility of his work. We have,
therefore, to choose between evolution and creation, bearing in mind,
however, that there may be a place in nature for evolution, properly
limited, as well as for other things, and that the idea of creation by
no means excludes law and second causes." (p. 321)

"It may be said, that evolution may be held as a scientific doctrine in
connection with a modified belief in creation. The work of actual
creation may have been limited to a few elementary types, and evolution
may have done the rest. Evolutionists may still be theists. We have
already seen that the doctrine, as carried out to its logical
consequences, excludes creation and theism. It may, however, be shown
that even in its mo