Through what faults of dogmatism on the one hand, and
skepticism on the other, it came to be so thought, we need not here
consider. Let us hope, and I confidently expect, that it is not to last;
that the religious faith which survived without a shock the notion of
the fixedness of the earth itself, may equally outlast the notion of the
absolute fixedness of the species which inhabit it; that in the future,
even more than in the past, faith in an _order_, which is the basis of
science, will not--as it cannot reasonably--be dissevered from faith in
an _Ordainer_, which is the basis of religion."[59] We thank God for
that sentence. It is the concluding sentence of Dr. Gray's address as
ex-President of "The American Association for the Advancement of
Science," delivered August, 1872.
Dr. Gray goes further. He says, "The proposition that the things and
events in nature were not designed to be so, if logically carried out,
is doubtless tantamount to atheism." Again, "To us, a fortuitous Cosmos
is simply inconceivable. The alternative is a designed Cosmos.... If Mr.
Darwin believes that the events which he supposes to have occurred and
the results we behold around us were undirected and undesigned; or if
the physicist believes that the natural forces to which he refers
phenomena are uncaused and undirected, no argument is needed to show
that such belief is atheistic.
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