rangement was not intended to evolve the
phenomena of the universe." (The "Genealogy of Animals" ('The
Academy,' 1869), reprinted in 'Critiques and Addresses.')

The acute champion of Teleology, Paley, saw no difficulty in admitting
that the "production of things" may be the result of trains of
mechanical dispositions fixed beforehand by intelligent appointment and
kept in action by a power at the centre ('Natural Theology,' chapter
xxiii.), that is to say, he proleptically accepted the modern doctrine
of Evolution; and his successors might do well to follow their leader,
or at any rate to attend to his weighty reasonings, before rushing into
an antagonism which has no reasonable foundation.

Having got rid of the belief in chance and the disbelief in design, as
in no sense appurtenances of Evolution, the third libel upon that
doctrine, that it is anti-theistic, might perhaps be left to shift for
itself. But the persistence with which many people refuse to draw the
plainest consequences from the propositions they profess to accept,
renders it advisable to remark that the doctrine of Evolution is
neither Anti-theistic nor Theistic. It simply has no more to do with
Theism than the first book of Euclid has. It is quite certain that a
normal fresh-laid egg contains neither cock nor hen; and it is also as
certain as any proposition in physics or morals, that if such an egg is
kept under proper conditions for three weeks, a cock or hen chicken
will be found in it. It is also quite certain that if the shell were
transparent we should be able to watch the formation of the young fowl,
day by day, by a process of evolution, from a microscopic cellular germ
to its full size and complication of structure. Therefore Evolution,
in the strictest sense, is actually going on in this and analogous
millions and millions of instances, wherever living creatures exist.
Therefore, to borrow an argument from Butler, as that which now happens
must be consistent with the attributes of the Deity, if such a Being
exists, Evolution must be consistent with those attributes. And, if
so, the evolution of the universe, which is neither more nor less
explicable than that of a chicken, must also be consistent with them.
The doctrine of Evolution, therefore, does not even come into contact
with Theism, considered as a philosophical doctrine. That with which
it does collide, and with which it is absolutely inconsistent, is the
conception of creati