re modified form, and when held by men who maintain
that they are not atheists, it is practically atheistic, because
excluding the idea of plan and design, and resolving all things into the
action of unintelligent forces. It is necessary to observe this, because
it is the half-way-evolutionism, which professes to have a creator
somewhere behind it, that is most popular; though it is, if possible,
more unphilosophical than that which professes to set out with absolute
and determined nonentity, or from self-existing stardust containing all
the possibilities of the universe."

In reference to the objection of evolutionists, that the origin of every
new species, on the theistic doctrine, supposes "a miracle," an
intervention of the divine efficiency without the agency of second
causes, Principal Dawson asks, "What is the actual statement of the
theory of creation as it may be held by a modern man of science? Simply
this: that all things have been produced by the Supreme Creative will,
acting either directly, or through the agency of the forces and material
of his own production." (p. 340)

He thus sums up his argument against the doctrine of evolution,
specially in its application to man: "Finally, the evolutionist picture
wants some of the fairest lineaments of humanity, and cheats us with the
semblance of man without the reality. Shave and paint your ape as you
may, clothe him and set him up upon his feet, still he fails greatly of
the 'human form divine;' and so it is with him morally and spiritually
as well. We have seen that he wants the instinct of immortality, the
love of God, the mental and spiritual power of exercising dominion over
the earth. The very agency by which he is evolved is of itself
subversive of all these higher properties; the struggle for existence is
essentially selfish, and, therefore, degrading. Even in the lower
animals, it is a false assumption that its tendency is to elevate; for
animals, when driven to the utmost verge of the struggle for life,
become depauperated and degraded. The dog which spends its life in
snarling contention with its fellow curs for insufficient food, will not
be a noble specimen of its race. God does not so treat his creatures.
There is far more truth to nature in the doctrine which represents Him
as listening to the young ravens when they cry for food. But as applied
to man, the theory of the struggle for existence, and survival of the
fittest, though the most popular