clearness of style, something
called Nature is set up as God; Mr. Savage's god, as nearly as we can
make out, is the law of evolution--the formative power by which the
universe passed from a mass of fluid fire, revolving in space, into
suns, and suns and planets, and their inhabitants. In either case it
amounts to about the same thing. What is nature? We may be sure the word
is not used in the sense which it has when we say that a man admires
nature, loves nature, or observes nature, nor in that which it has when
we speak of the nature of things or the nature in a work of the
imagination, or the nature of man, or "the nature of the beast." What is
it then? We are very sure that the "Macmillan" writer, with all his
delicacy of thought and command of expression, could not say exactly
what he means when he speaks of this Nature which is so worthy of
reverence and of love. For this reason, and for no other, we may be
sure, he has left the word undefined. This is important; for, as Mr.
Savage says in his eleventh chapter, when he proposes the question
whether evolution and Christianity are antagonistic, so that one
necessarily excludes the other--"that depends upon definitions."

--The truth is that this whole question is one greatly of definitions.
What do you mean by God? what by Nature? what by religion? We are
inclined to think that if the two parties on one side and the other of
the great question of the day were to have a preliminary settlement of
definitions, it would become plain that there could be no discussion,
certainly no profitable discussion, between them--no more than there
could be a fight between a deep-sea fish and a chamois. They would find
that there was no ground on which they could meet, no point on which
they could come in contact! To one God is, and must be, a person, an
individual, who, however spiritual, eternal, omniscient, and
omnipresent, is yet as much a person as a man having a will, with
purposes, affections, feelings, sentiments, as indeed every spiritual
being must have--a being who can be feared, revered, admired, loved.
Religion to these men is worship of this person, obedience to his will
because it is his, faith in him, love of him. The god of the
evolutionists, on the other hand, is, if Nature, a mere manifestation or
result; if a law, a mere mode or rule of action. As to the religion of
evolution, we cannot, with all Mr. Savage's help, and that of the
"Macmillan" writer (who, we are