CONCLUSIONS.
These, then, are the difficulties created by the doctrine of Evolution. They are difficulties which appear completely to impugn the very nature of God, the veracity of the Bible, and the dogmas of sin and its atonement. We have already seen, by our study of Bible criticism and comparative mythology, how grave are the grounds for distrusting the Faith, and Evolution seems to be just the finishing stroke that was required for confirming our suspicions. We must now see whether there are any other arguments for belief of sufficient weight to warrant us in over-stepping the boundaries of reason by an act of faith.
[1] Quoted from Darwin’s Descent of Man.
[2] “The preservation of favourable variations and the rejection of injurious variations I call natural selection” (Darwin, Origin of Species, ed. 1860, iv.).
[3] Darwin, Varieties of Animals and Plants, xx., 178.
[4] Concluding remarks in Darwin’s Descent of Man.
[5] Ibid.
[6] See his book containing the aforesaid lectures, and called God’s Image in Man and its Defacement in the Light of Modern Denials. (Hodder and Stoughton; 1905.)
[7] Lent by Mr. Reginald Blunt to the Chelsea Public Library.