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."

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,