ent or gaseous ball from which the
planets were successively separated. Life, as we define it, was not
possible for aeons subsequent to this separation. When and how did it
appear? I have already pressed this question, but have received no
answer. [Footnote: In the 'Apology for the Belfast Address,' the
question is reasoned out.] If, with Professor Knight, we regard the
Bible account of the introduction of life upon the earth as a poem,
not as a statement of fact, where are we to seek for guidance as to
the fact? There does not exist a barrier possessing the strength of a
cobweb to oppose to the hypothesis, which ascribes the appearance of
life to that 'potency of matter' which finds expression in natural
evolution. [Footnote: 'We feel it an undeniable necessity,' says
Professor Virchow, not to sever the organic world from the whole, as
if it were something disjoined from the whole.' This grave statement
cannot be weakened by the subsequent pleasantry regarding 'Carbon &
Co.']

This hypothesis is not without its difficulties, but they vanish when
compared with those which encumber its rivals. There are various
facts in science obviously connected, and whose connections we are
unable to trace; but we do not think of filling the gap between them
by the intrusion of a separable spiritual agent. In like manner
though we are unable to trace the course of things from the nebula,
when there was no life in our sense, to the present earth where life
abounds, the spirit and practice of science pronounce against the
intrusion of an anthropomorphic creator. Theologians must liberate
and refine their conceptions or be prepared for the rejection of them
by thoughtful minds. It is they, not we, who lay claim to knowledge
never given to man. Our refusal of the creative hypothesis is less an
assertion of knowledge than a protest against the assumption of
knowledge which must long, if not always, lie beyond us, and the claim
to which is a source of perpetual confusion.' At the same time, when I
look with strenuous gaze into the whole problem as far as my
capacities allow, overwhelming wonder is the predominant feeling. This
wonder has come to me from the ages just as much as my understanding,
and it has an equal right to satisfaction. Hence I say, if,
abandoning your illegitimate claim to knowledge, you place, with Job,
your forehead in the dust and acknowledge the authorship of this
universe to be past finding out--if, havin