to mechanical, physical, necessary law, until all have been, or will be, or conceivably may be, thus reduced; and mind seems at last driven out of nature entirely. The friends of religion and of the church in despair cry out for at least some small corner left for mind. Thus we see only recently going on, in an English scientific periodical,1 a discussion on the subject of "Mind as One of the Causes of Evolution." And has it come to this? God, the Divine Mind, begging, as it were, for recognition as one of the causes of evolution? The true solution of this question is evident. It is the same as in the other cases. All is mind, or none; also, all is mechanics, or none. All is mind through mechanics. Mechanics is but the mode of operation of the Divine Mind. VI. Question of Mode of Creation.

I might multiply examples, almost without limit, of questions the solution of which depends on this one of the relation of God to nature. I give one more, namely, the method of creation.

The creation of the universe at once, and then rest ever since, - this old anthropomorphic idea is now replaced by that of continuous creation, unhasting, unresting, by an eternal process of evolution. For if the universal law of gravitation is the divine mode of sustentation of the universe, the no less universal law of evolution is the divine process of creation.

But it will be objected that this view of the relation of God to nature is nothing less than Pantheism; that it destroys the personality of Deity, the necessary foundation of all effective religion; that by this view God becomes a sort of vital principle of nature operating unconsciously and by necessary law. I will not stop to argue this question, as I might, because I have already done so elsewhere.2 I will now only make one remark. It is this: In our view of the nature of God, the choice is not between personality and something lower than personality, namely, a blind unconscious force operating by necessity, as the pantheist and materialist would have us believe; but between our personality and something immeasurably higher than personality as we know it. Our language is so poor that we are compelled to represent even our mental phenomena by physical images; how much more, then, the divine nature by its human image! Self-conscious personality is the highest thing we know or can conceive. We offer Him the very best thing we have when we call Him a Person, 1 Duke of Argyle, Nature, vol. xxxiv., p. 335; S. B. Mitra, p. 385, 1886. 2 Evolution and its Relation to Religious Thought, Part III., chap. vi.

even though we know that this, our best, falls far short of the infinite reality.

THE CHRIST.

Thus far I have touched only our ideas of God as being the most fundamental of all, and therefore controlling all other religious ideas. But religion and the church are concerned also with man. Thus far I have spoken of the expansion and elevation of our most fundamental religious conceptions; but science ought also to verify whatever is truest and noblest in our religious beliefs. Here I touch on still more delicate ground. Shall I go on?

What, then, think ye of Christ? This is, indeed, the test question, and we ought frankly to meet it. Does science have anything to say on this question also? I think it does. I shall not trouble myself and you with stating and attempting to combat the diverse and often crude views held on this subject, but shall only state the view to which I am led both by science and, as I think, by a rational Christianity. According to this view, as organic evolution reached its goal and completion in man, so human evolution reaches its goal and completion in the ideal man," the Christ." Observe, I say the Christ. Whether this ideal has ever appeared in the flesh is a distinct question which I shall speak of later. According to this view, the Christ is the ideal man, and therefore, (mark the implication), - and therefore the divine man. We are all as men (as contradistinguished from brutes), — we are all, I say, sons of God; the Christ is the well-beloved Son. We are all in the image of God; He is the express and perfect image. We are all partakers in various degrees of the divine nature; in Him the divine nature is completely realized. It is not necessary that the ideal man - the Christ should be perfect in knowledge or infinite in power. On the contrary, we ought to expect Him to grow in wisdom and in stature like other men. But He must be perfect in character, — in moral nature. Character is essential spirit. All else, even knowledge, is only environment for its culture. In the blaze of the light of modern science we are apt to forget this. Character is the attitude of the human spirit toward the Divine Spirit. If I should add anything to this definition, I would say that it is spiritual attitude and spiritual energy. In the Christ this attitude must be wholly right; the harmony, the union with the divine, must be perfect. This perfect union gives of necessity, also, fullness of spiritual energy.

I fear you may think I am treading on holy ground. But no

ground is too holy to be trodden by reason, if only with reverent spirit, with shoes removed. I have gone so far that I must go

on.

I dare not stop without explaining myself more fully. I wish especially to show that, although the Christ must be human, yes, even more intensely human than any one of us,

yet, by

the law of evolution, we ought to expect Him to differ from us in an inconceivable degree. This I do by a series of illustrations.

We have said that the Christ is the ideal, and, therefore, the divine Man; that He is the goal and completion of humanity. But in evolution a goal is not only a completion of one stage, but also the beginning of a new stage, on a higher plane of life, with new and higher powers and capacities unimaginable from any lower plane. Let me illustrate this important point.

(1.) As man is the ideal, the goal and completion of animal evolution, and yet is he also a birth into a new and higher plane of life—the spiritual; so the Christ, the ideal Man, may be only the goal and completion of human evolution, and yet is He also a birth into a new and higher plane, the divine.

(2.) As the human spirit preëxisted in embryo in animals, slowly developing through all geological times, and finally came to birth and immortality in man; so the divine spirit is in embryo in man in various stages of development, and comes to birth and completion of divine life in the Christ.

(3.) As animals reached conscious relations with God in man, even so man reaches union with God in the Christ.

(4.) As man, the ideal of animal evolution, is a union of the animal with the spiritual; so the Christ, the ideal of human evolution, is a union of the human with the divine.

(5.) As, with the appearance of man, there were introduced into the world new powers and capacities unimaginable from the animal point of view, and therefore from that point of view seemingly supernatural, that is, above their nature; so with the appearance of the Christ there ought to be new powers and capacities unimaginable to the human point of view, and therefore to us seemingly supernatural, that is, above our nature.

The Christ as defined above, that is, as the ideal man, is undoubtedly a true object of rational worship. There are two, and only two, fundamental moral principles, - love to God and love to Both must be embodied in a rational worship. In Christianity the one is embodied in the worship of an Infinite Spirit, God; the other in the worship of the ideal man, the Christ. How much more effective this, as an agent of human culture, than

man.

the worship of the impersonal abstraction, called Humanity, of the Positivists!

But now comes the last, the burning question, but distinctly a different question: Has the Christ ever come any otherwise than, in the human imagination, as an ideal? Has he ever come in the flesh? In a word, Is Jesus the Christ?

Let it be admitted that Jesus was not perfect in knowledge (He himself said, "Of that day and hour knoweth no man, not even the Son, but the Father only "); nor infinite in power (He felt human weakness like others, and prayed to be delivered). Let it be admitted that He increased in wisdom and in stature like other men. But in character, in the perfect rightness of the attitude of his spirit toward the Divine Spirit, the completeness of the conformity of his will to the Divine Will, who has been able to find any defect? May we not, then, accept Him as the Christ, as the best ideal, not only that we know, but that we can conceive? And since ideals are the great agents in the formation of character, are we not bound to accept him as our leader, as the Captain of our salvation ?

But it will be objected that this is inconsistent with the idea of evolution; for the goal, or completion, or ideal of any stage cannot come until the end. I answer, this is true of organic but not of human evolution. There is an essential difference in this regard between these two kinds of evolution. In addition to all the factors of organic evolution, in human evolution there is introduced a new and higher factor which immediately takes precedence of all others. This factor is the conscious, voluntary cooperation of the human spirit in the work of its own evolution. The method of this new factor consists essentially in the formation and especially in the pursuit of ideals. In organic evolution species are transformed by the environment. In human evolution spirit or character is transformed by its own ideals. Organic evolution is by necessary law; human evolution is by voluntary effort, that is, by free law. Organic evolution is by a pushing upward and onward from below and behind; human evolution, by a pulling upward and onward from above and in front by the attractive force of ideals. Thus the ideal of organic evolution cannot come until the end; while the attracting ideals of human evolution must come whether only in the imagination or realized in the flesh but must come somehow in the course. The most powerfully attractive ideal ever presented to the human mind, and therefore the most potent agent in the evolution of human char

whether in the

acter, is the Christ. Thus ideal must come imagination or in the flesh, but must come somehow in the course and not at the end. At the end the whole human race must reach that ideal, must reach "the measure of the stature of the fullness of the Christ." But this can never be except by the attractive force of the ideal already come in the course. The Christ must reveal the right way of life before we can follow and transform our characters thereby.

But it will be again objected that all ideals are only partial and temporary. We are drawn onward and upward by many successive ideals. Ideals are only milestones in our course which we successively reach and put behind us, while we press on toward another. They are but rounds of a ladder which we successively put beneath us as we climb higher. This ideal, too, the Christ, - is only temporary; we will put this also behind us and pass on. On this objection I make two brief remarks: First, Let it be admitted that such in many ways is the course of human progress, but who has been able to reach this ideal and conceive a higher? When we have realized this one in our character and conduct, it will be time enough to seek another. Again: It is true that the human race in all its earlier stages has advanced, and in many directions is still advancing, only by means of partial and temporary ideals, which are replaced when they have served their purpose; but this itself is a temporary phase of evolution. There must come, and does in fact come, a time when we catch glimpses of the absolute Ideal. Then the gaze becomes fixed, and we are drawn onward and upward forever. The human race has already reached the stage at which the absolute moral Ideal is attractive. This Divine Ideal can never again be lost, because it is itself the agent of its own realization.

BERKELEY, CAL.

Joseph Le Conte.

JOHN WILLIAMSON NEVIN, 1803-1886.1

"As I take it," says Thomas Carlyle, "universal history, the history of what man has accomplished in this world, is at bottom the history of the great men who have worked here. They were

1 The Life and Work of John Williamson Nevin, D. D., LL. D. By Theodore Appel, D. D. Philadelphia: Reformed Church Publication House, 907 Arch Street. 8vo, pp. 776.

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