ery_ faculty of
man's nature, and the intellect is not (any more than we should _a priori_
expect it to be) exempted from taking part in the probationary trial. A
moral element enters into the acceptance of that system.

And so with natural religion--with those ideas of the supernatural, viz.
God, Creation, and Morality, which are anterior to revelation and repose
upon reason. Here again it evidently has not been the intention of the
Creator to make the evidence of His existence so plain that its
non-recognition would be the mark of intellectual incapacity. {270}
Conviction, as to theism, is not forced upon men as is the conviction of
the existence of the sun at noon-day.[286] A moral element enters also
here, and the analogy there is in this respect between Christianity and
theism speaks eloquently of their primary derivation from one common
author.

Thus we might expect that it would be a vain task to seek anywhere in
nature for evidence of Divine action, such that no one could sanely deny
it. God will not allow Himself to be caught at the bottom of any man's
crucible, or yield Himself to the experiments of gross-minded and
irreverent inquirers. The natural, like the supernatural, revelation
appeals to _the whole_ of man's mental nature and not to the _reason
alone_.[287]

None, therefore, need feel disappointed that evidence of the direct action
of the first cause in merely natural phenomena ever eludes our grasp; for
assuredly those same phenomena will ever remain fundamentally inexplicable
by physical science alone.

There being then nothing in either authority or reason which makes
"evolution" repugnant to Christianity, is there anything in the Christian
doctrine of "Creation" which is repugnant to the theory of "evolution"?

Enough has been said as to the distinction between absolute and derivative
"creation." It remains to consider the successive "evolution" (Darwinian
and other) of "specific forms," in a theological light.

As to what "evolution" is, we cannot of course hope to explain it
completely, but it may be enough to define it as the manifestation to the
intellect, by means of sensible impressions, of some ideal entity (power,
principle, nature, or activity) which before that manifestation was in{271}
a latent, unrealized, and merely "potential" state--a state that is capable
of becoming realized, actual, or manifest, the requisite conditions being
supplied.

"Specific forms," kinds or sp