out
purpose or intention. Taking all these things into consideration, we
think it may, with moderation, be said, that a more absolutely
incredible theory was never propounded for acceptance among men.

2. There is no pretence that the theory can be proved. Mr. Darwin does
not pretend to prove it. He admits that all the facts in the case can be
accounted for on the assumption of divine purpose and control. All that
he claims for his theory is that it is possible. His mode of arguing is
that if we suppose this and that, then it may have happened thus and so.
Amiable and attractive as the man presents himself in his writings, it
rouses indignation, in one class at least of his readers, to see him by
such a mode of arguing reaching conclusions which are subversive of the
fundamental truths of religion.

3. Another fact cannot fail to attract attention. When the theory of
evolution was propounded in 1844 in the "Vestiges of Creation," it was
universally rejected; when proposed by Mr. Darwin, less than twenty
years afterward, it was received with acclamation. Why is this? The
facts are now what they were then. They were as well known then as they
are now. The theory, so far as evolution is concerned, was then just
what it is now. How then is it, that what was scientifically false in
1844 is scientifically true in 1864? When a drama is introduced in a
theatre and universally condemned, and a little while afterward, with a
little change in the scenery, it is received with rapturous applause,
the natural conclusion is, that the change is in the audience and not in
the drama.

There is only one cause for the fact referred to, that we can think of.
The "Vestiges of Creation" did not expressly or effectually exclude
design. Darwin does. This is a reason assigned by the most zealous
advocates of his theory for their adoption of it. This is the reason
given by Buechner, by Haeckel, and by Vogt. It is assigned also in
express terms by Strauss, the announcement of whose death has diffused a
feeling of sadness over all who were acquainted with his antecedents. In
his last work, "The Old Faith and the New," he admits "that Darwin's
doctrine is a mere hypothesis; that it leaves the main points
unexplained (Die Hupt und Cardinal-punkte noch unerklaert sind);
nevertheless, as he has shown how miracles may be excluded, he is to be
applauded as one of the greatest benefactors of the human race." (p.
177) By "Wunder," or miracle, Strauss me