of life,' etc. Then the words 'Natural Selection' are ambiguous. Selection means choice, and natural is as applicable to the nature and quality of consciousness as to the nature of flint, or any other physical object. In reference to the former, what is properly named supernatural is also natural. In one sense, so-called natural selection is nothing more than mere chemical affinity. But what could be more absurd than to name the act of personal conscious choice, chemical affinity ?-yet this is practically what Darwin's Natural Selection amounts to. In reality, the term Natural Selection might be applied to personal conscious choice and design, because the act of selection belongs to the nature of a person, but not to the nature of stones and plants. Essentially

there is no natural selection, since all selection is governed by the law of Spirit. Darwin, however, supposed that with Newton the Law of Gravitation was wholly physical in inorganic Nature, and wishing to emulate Newton, he became ambitious to prove that organic Nature was equally physical, and that the latter was complementary to the former: all was physical Selection. So his Deity was Natural Selection. With Newton universal gravitation had a clearly-expressed law, viz., that every particle of matter attracts every other particle in inverse proportion to the square of their distance. But Darwin's so-called law of Natural Selection has no real definite formula, mathematical or logical; his law is nothing but an accident of an accident,' such as 'a bird may be born with 100th of an inch longer beak than usual.' This is his favourite illustration; this theory is, 'favourable variations would tend to be preserved, and unfavourable ones to be destroyed,' but of the causes of variation he says, we are profoundly ignorant.' He begins and ends

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with accident, from which he derives what he falsely calls the struggle for existence,' and 'survival of the fittest,' and maintains there is no design now that the law of Natural Selection is discovered.' Huxley thinks that everything may work loose from everything else': thus it is foolish to suppose the eye was made to see: it is all accident.

Some physicists-Lord Kelvin in particular— calculated that the world has existed for only one hundred million years, others, for three hundred millions, some come down to ten millions, and many are concerning themselves at present more about how long the universe will last than about its origin. Reason demands an eternal NOW. Little reflection is required to make it evident that an eternal past and an eternal future is an eternal NOW present in the thought of every human person. Eternity is duration without beginning and without end, and that is a clear, definite thought actually in man. To know Christ is to know the eternal and absolute God and Father of All. This is eternal life in man, which in its depth is the love of God in Christ. Divine and Human Reason are one. God, then, is the eternal beginning of all things.

Certainly human reason requires an eternal NOW, in fact, Reason is an eternal NOW, and demands an eternal creation, for inactive, processless Spirit is a contradiction of terms, though it implies a creation in harmony with itself. The universe is full of ideas-all in perfect agreement with Absolute and Infinite Reason, such as can only belong to the nature of an all-perfect God. Stirling expresses this thought in reference to geology in a very rational form: 'In these perpetual wearings down and heavings up, that seem really intimated there to go on, and round and round for ever, I had a most vivid picture of

an eternal life even on the part of this little Earth of ours. Yet how, in their estimates that would describe or prescribe periods, our very best, whom we admire and honour in excelsis-differ! They separate themselves, the one from the other, by millions and millions-by tens of millions-by hundreds of millions of years: they might as well separate themselves by infinitude!' 'The repose of an eternal NOW is what our religion guarantees to us.'

Logically, evolution is origin from nothing, which is absurd. Creation is an eternal logical dialectical process of Spirit. It is in essence one with miracle, manifested in special acts as revealed in the philosophical history of the Bible, for, as already stated, the Bible is the most metaphysical book that was ever written, for, strictly, 'metaphysical' and 'spiritual' are synonymous terms.

The logical dialectical process of Spirit just referred to is Hegel's logical, dialectic, immanent and transcendent process of the Ego, and is the body, soul and Spirit of his philosophy. I know of no one but Dr. James Hutchison Stirling, who has fully grasped this great principle in its deep significance. Professor James seems to scoff at it as if it had no intelligible meaning. Briefly, it signifies the selfactivity and creative power of God, and is the key to the right understanding of the words of Christ, 'My father worketh hitherto, and I work.' It also explains what Hegel means by the Negation of the Negation, the creation of the world and Becoming, i.e. coming to be (origin), and ceasing to be (decease). With him Being is not an abstract Nothing, but the real creation of worlds. Some professed admirers of Hegel have endeavoured to show that his theory of Becoming is essentially one in principle with the

modern theory or theories of evolution, and this amalgam they have dubbed Neo-Hegelianism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Hegel says: God be praised! we can negate the abstract Nothing, and be landed in Being,' which becoming necessarily implies. Thus creation by a Creator is a genuine logical deduction from the fact of the infinite and absolute reality of human thought, as an irrefutable fact of human experience, from which all logical philosophy must begin. Many evolutionists confound evolution with the growth of plants and animals from germs, and also with the principle of the improvement of species. But growth and improvement of species belong essentially to the true idea of creation. If evolution were only used to signify growth, there were nothing to object to, but it is intended to denote the origin of species independent of any direct creative power, and especially the origin of man from the animal, and, in the ultimate, the origin of all the infinitely variegated universe from a supposed original vapour or gas diffused through space. Then, as Hegel says, 'in order to make it clearer it is relegated to a dim and distant past.' Although Darwin says, 'We cannot prove that a single species has changed,' yet he declares, I cannot doubt that during millions of generations individuals of a species will be born with some slight variation profitable to some part of its economy.' He further adds, 'Nor can we prove that the supposed changes are beneficial, which is the groundwork of the theory.' That is his whole reasoning for Natural Selection. Is it surprising that Carlyle should say of Darwin's theory,' Wonderful to me as indicating the capricious stupidity of mankind-never could waste the least thought upon it.' The following quotations from Sartor Resartus show how much superior was

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Carlyle's view of Nature to Darwin's: Nature is one, and a living invisible whole: mankind, the Image that reflects and creates Nature, without which Nature were not.' 'We speak of the volume of Nature and truly a volume it is, whose author and writer is God.' 'Is not God's universe a Symbol of the Godlike; is not immensity a temple?' 'What are the laws of Nature? To me, perhaps the rising of one from the dead were no violation of these Laws, but a confirmation. The Machine of the Universe is fixed to move by unalterable rules. I, too, must believe that the God "without variableness or shadow of turning" does indeed never change. All things wax and roll onwards; Newton has learned to see what Kepler saw; but there is also a fresh heavenderived force in Newton; he must mount to still higher points of vision. So too the Hebrew Lawgiver is, in due time, followed by an apostle of the Gentiles.' The real Being of whatever was, and whatever is, and whatever will be, is even now and for ever. Then sawest thou that this fair Universe is in very deed the star-domed City of God; that through every star, through every grass-blade, and most through every Living Soul, the glory of a present God still beams. Nature is the Time-vesture of God, and reveals Him to the wise.' 'Our highest Orpheus walked in Judea, eighteen hundred years ago; His sphere-melody still flows, still sounds. We are spirits. Whence? Whither? From God to God.'