Evolution, it may be said that it is violently opposed to
it. It announces a new Kingdom starting off suddenly on a different
plane and in direct violation of the primary principle of development.
Instead of carrying the organic evolution further on its own lines,
theology at a given point interposes a sudden and hopeless barrier--the
barrier between the natural and the spiritual--and insists that the
evolutionary process must begin again at the beginning. At this point,
in fact, Nature acts _per saltum_. This is no Evolution, but a
Catastrophe--such a Catastrophe as must be fatal to any consistent
development hypothesis.

On the surface this objection seems final--but it is only on the
surface. It arises from taking a too narrow view of what Evolution is.
It takes evolution in zoology for Evolution as a whole. Evolution
began, let us say, with some primeval nebulous mass in which lay
potentially all future worlds. Under the evolutionary hand, the
amorphous cloud broke up, condensed, took definite shape, and in the
line of true development assumed a gradually increasing complexity.
Finally there emerged the cooled and finished earth, highly
differentiated, so to speak, complete and fully equipped. And what
followed? Let it be well observed--a Catastrophe. Instead of carrying
the process further, the Evolution, if this is Evolution, here also
abruptly stops. A sudden and hopeless barrier--the barrier between the
Inorganic and the Organic--interposes, and the process has to begin
again at the beginning with the creation of Life. Here then is a barrier
placed by Science at the close of the Inorganic similar to the barrier
placed by Theology at the close of the Organic. Science has used every
effort to abolish this first barrier, but there it still stands
challenging the attention of the modern world, and no consistent theory
of Evolution can fail to reckon with it. Any objection, then, to the
Catastrophe introduced by Christianity between the Natural and Spiritual
Kingdoms applies with equal force against the barrier which Science
places between the Inorganic and the Organic. The reserve of Life in
either case is a fact, and a fact of exceptional significance.

What then becomes of Evolution? Do these two great barriers destroy it?
By no means. But they make it necessary to frame a larger doctrine. And
the doctrine gains immeasurably by such an enlargement. For now the case
stands thus: Evolution, in harmony with its own