It is hardly the fault of “religionists” that it was at first supposed that one could not hold the doctrine of evolution without denying a “special” creation and a designing Providence.  It was on this very natural supposition that the first leading attack—­attributed to the Bishop of Oxford—­proceeded.  And the writer fell into the equally natural mistake of taking advantage of the uncompleted and unproved state of the theory at the time, to attack the theory itself, instead of keeping to the safer ground, namely, that whatever might ultimately be the conclusion of evolutionists, it was quite certain that no theory of evolution that at all coincided with the known facts, offered any ground for argument against the existence of an Intelligent Lawgiver and First Cause of all; nor did it tend in the slightest to show that no such thing as creative design and providence existed in the course of nature.

What the discovery of evolution really did, was to necessitate a revision of the hitherto popularly accepted and generally assumed and unquestioned notion of what creation was.  And it has long appeared to me, that while now the most thoroughgoing advocates of evolution generally admit that their justly cherished doctrine has nothing to say to the existence of a Creator, or to the possibility of design—­which may be accepted or denied on other grounds—­the writers on the side of Christianity have not sufficiently recognized the change which their views ought to undergo.

As long as this is the case, there will continue to be a certain “conflict,” not indeed between science and religion, but of the kind which has been vividly depicted by the late Dr. Draper.

It can scarcely have escaped the notice of the most ordinary reader that, in the course of that interesting work, the author has very little to say about religion—­at any rate about religion in any proper sense of the term.  The conflict was between a Church which had a zeal for God without knowledge, and the progress of scientific thought; it was also a conflict between discovered facts, and facts which existed, not in the Bible, but in a particular interpretation, however generally received, of it.

The present work is therefore addressed primarily to Christian believers who still remain perplexed as to what they ought to believe; and its aim is to prevent, if may be, an unreasonable alarm at, and a useless opposition to, the conclusions of modern science; while, at the same time, it tells them in simple language how far those conclusions really go, and how very groundless is the fear that they will ever subvert a true faith that, antecedent to the most wonderful chain of causation and methodical working which science can establish, there is still a Divine Designer—­One who upholds all things “by the word of His power.”