unate that he should not have shown any appreciation of a
position opposed to his own other than that gross and crude one which he
combats so superfluously--that he should appear, even for a moment, to be
one of those, of whom there are far too many, who first misrepresent their
adversary's view, and then elaborately refute it; who, in fact, erect a
doll utterly incapable of self-defence and then, with a flourish of
trumpets and many vigorous strokes, overthrow the helpless dummy they had
previously raised.

This is what many do who more or less distinctly oppose theism in the
interests, as they believe, of physical science; and they often represent,
amongst other things, a gross and narrow anthropomorphism as the necessary
consequence of views opposed to those which they themselves advocate. {17}
Mr. Darwin and others may perhaps be excused if they have not devoted much
time to the study of Christian philosophy; but they have no right to assume
or accept, without careful examination, as an unquestioned fact, that in
that philosophy there is a necessary antagonism between the two ideas,
"creation" and "evolution," as applied to organic forms.

It is notorious and patent to all who choose to seek, that many
distinguished Christian thinkers have accepted and do accept both ideas,
_i.e._ both "creation" and "evolution."

As much as ten years ago, an eminently Christian writer observed: "The
creationist theory does not necessitate the perpetual search after
manifestations of miraculous powers and perpetual 'catastrophes.' Creation
is not a miraculous interference with the laws of nature, but the very
institution of those laws. Law and regularity, not arbitrary intervention,
was the patristic ideal of creation. With this notion, they admitted
without difficulty the most surprising origin of living creatures, provided
it took place by _law_. They held that when God said, 'Let the waters
produce,' 'Let the earth produce,' He conferred forces on the elements of
earth and water, which enabled them naturally to produce the various
species of organic beings. This power, they thought, remains attached to
the elements throughout all time."[10] The same writer quotes St. Augustine
and St. Thomas Aquinas, to the effect that, "in the institution of nature
we do not look for miracles, but for the laws of nature."[11] And, again,
St. Basil,[12] speaks of the continued operation of natural laws in the
production of all organisms. [Page