are not as applicable in
turning the flank of infidelity here as everywhere else.

First, as regards Adam and Eve, observe, to begin with, that long before
Darwin the story of man in Paradise was recognized by thoughtful
theologians as allegorical. Indeed, read with unprejudiced eyes, the
first chapters of Genesis ought always to have been seen to be a poem as
distinguished from a history: nor could it ever have been mistaken for
a history, but for preconceived ideas on the matter of inspiration. But
to pure agnostics there should be no such preconceived ideas; so that
nowadays no presumption should be raised against it as inspired, merely
because it has been proved not to be a history--and this even though we
cannot see of what it is allegorical. For, supposing it inspired, it has
certainly done good service in the past and can do so likewise in the
present, by giving an allegorical, though not a literal, starting-point
for the Divine Plan of Redemption.

_The evidence of Natural and Revealed Religion compared_.

It is often said that evolution of organic forms gives as good evidence
of design as would their special creation, inasmuch as all the facts of
adaptation, in which the evidence consists, are there in either case.
But here it is overlooked that the very question at issue is thus
begged. The question is, Are these facts of adaptation _per se_
sufficient evidence of design as their cause? But if it be allowed, as
it must be, that under hypothesis of evolution by natural causes the
facts of adaptation belong to the same category as all the other facts
of nature, no more special argument for design can be founded on these
facts than on any others in nature. So that the facts of adaptation,
like all other facts, are only available as arguments for design when
it is assumed that all natural causation is of a mental character: which
assumption merely begs the question of design anywhere. Or, in other
words, on the supposition of their having been due to natural causes,
the facts of adaptation are only then available as _per se_ good
evidence of design, when it has already been assumed that, _qua_ due to
natural causes, they are due to design.

Natural religion resembles Revealed religion in this. Supposing both
divine, both have been arranged so that, as far as reason can lead us,
there is only enough evidence of design to arouse serious attention to
the question of it. In other words, as regards both, the atti