Gentlemen, think of this.  I only suggest the thought; but I do not suggest it in haste.  Think over it—­by the light which our Lord’s parables, His analogies between the physical and social constitution of the world, afford—­and consider whether those awful words, fulfilled then and fulfilled so often since—­“The kingdom of God shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits hereof”—­may not be the supreme instance, the most complex development of a law which runs through all created things, down to the moss which struggles for existence on the rock!

Do I say that this is all?  That man is merely a part of Nature, the puppet of circumstances and hereditary tendencies?  That brute competition is the one law of his life?  That he is doomed for ever to be the slave of his own needs, enforced by an internecine struggle for existence?  God forbid.  I believe not only in Nature, but in Grace.  I believe that this is man’s fate only as long as he sows to the flesh, and of the flesh reaps corruption.  I believe that if he will

Strive upward, working out the beast,
And let the ape and tiger die;

if he will be even as wise as the social animals; as the ant and the bee, who have risen, if not to the virtue of all-embracing charity, at least to the virtues of self-sacrifice and patriotism, {326} then he will rise towards a higher sphere; toward that kingdom of God of which it is written:  “He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.”

Whether that be matter of natural theology, I cannot tell as yet.  But as for all the former questions—­all that St. Paul means when he talks of the law, and how the works of the flesh bring men under the law, stern and terrible and destructive, though holy and just and good,—­they are matter of natural theology; and I believe that on them, as elsewhere, Scripture and science will be ultimately found to coincide.

But here we have to face an objection which you will often hear now from scientific men, and still oftener from non-scientific men; who will say:  It matters not to us whether Scripture contradicts or does not contradict a scientific natural theology; for we hold such a science to be impossible and naught.  The old Jews put a God into Nature, and therefore of course they could see, as you see, what they had already put there.  But we see no God in Nature.  We do not deny the existence of a God; we merely say that scientific research does not reveal Him to us.  We see no marks of design in physical phenomena.  What used to be considered as marks of design can be better explained by considering them as the results of evolution according to necessary laws; and you and Scripture make a mere assumption when you ascribe them to the operation of a mind like the human mind.