entertain theological systems which conformed to his limited
knowledge of nature. The universe seemed to be made for his uses,
the earth seemed to have been fitted up for his dwelling place, he
occupied the centre of creation, the sun was made to give him
light, etc. When Copernicus overthrew that view, the effect upon
theology was certainly tremendous. I do not believe that justice
has ever been done to the shock that it gave to man when he was
made to realize that he occupied a kind of miserable little clod of
dirt in the universe, and that there were so many other worlds
greater than this. It was one of the first great shocks involved
in the change from ancient to modern scientific views, and I do not
doubt it was responsible for a great deal of the pessimistic
philosophizing that came in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries.

Now, it flashed upon me a dozen years or so ago--after thinking
about this manner in which man originated--that man occupies
certainly just as exceptional a position as before, if he is the
terminal in a long series of evolutionary events. If at the end of
the long history of evolution comes man, if this whole secular
process has been going on to produce this supreme object, it does
not much matter what kind of a cosmical body he lives on. He is
put back into the old position of theological importance, and in a
much more intelligent way than in the old days when he was supposed
to occupy the centre of the universe. We are enabled to say that
while there is no doubt of the evolutionary process going on
throughout countless ages which we know nothing about, yet in the
one case where it is brought home to us we spell out an
intelligible story, and we do find things working along up to man
as a terminal fact in the whole process. This is indeed a