The doctrine of evolution is still the ignotum to a great many, and it is therefore, according to the time-honoured proverb, taken pro magnifico, as something terribly adverse to the faith.  Nor can it be fairly denied, as I before remarked, that some of the students of the theory have become so enamoured of it, so carried away by the intoxication of the gigantic speculation it opens out to the imagination, that they have succumbed to the temptation to carry speculation beyond what the proof warrants, and thus lend some aid to the deplorable confusion, which would blend in one, what is legitimate inference and what is unproved hypothesis or mere supposition.

It only remains to say that the basis of this little book is a short course of lectures in which I endeavoured to disarm the prejudices of an educated but not scientifically critical audience, by simply stating how far the theory of cosmical evolution had been really proved—­proved, that is, to the extent of that reasonable certainty which satisfies the ordinary “prudent man” in affairs of weight and importance.  I have tried to show that evolution, apart from fanciful and speculative extensions of it, allows, if it does not directly establish, that the operation of nature is not a chance or uncontrolled procedure, but one that suggests a distinct set of lines, and an orderly obedience to pre-conceived law, intelligently and beneficently (in the end) designed.

There are obviously two main points which the Christian reader requires to have made clear.  The first is that, the modern theory of evolution being admitted, the constitution of matter in the universe and the principles of development in organic life, which that theory establishes, not only do not exclude, but positively demand, the conception of a Divine artificer and director.  The second point, which is perhaps of still greater weight with the believer, is that where revelation (which is his ultimate standard of appeal) has touched upon the subject of creation, its statements are not merely a literary fancy, an imaginary cosmogony, false in its facts though enshrining Divine truth, but are as a whole perfectly true.

Whatever novelty there may be, is to be found in the treatment of the second subject.  The first portion of the work is only a brief and popular statement of facts, quite unnecessary to the scientific reader but probably very necessary to the large body of Churchmen, who have not studied science, but are quite able to appreciate scientific fact and its bearings when placed before them in an untechnical form, and divested of needless details and subordinate questions.