CREATION OB EVOLUTION? 35 



rather Mr. Curtis would discuss the point than we ; for we really can 

 not profess to understand either the economy that could have accom- 

 panied the reduction of structures, well developed in other types to 

 the rudimentary condition in which they are found in man, or the 

 wisdom of producing, by a fresh exertion of power, that which was 

 functionally useless. 



Our author combats in turn nearly every position taken by Mr. 

 Spencer in his exposition of biological evolution. To Mr. Spencer's 

 statement that not only did no one ever see a special creation take 

 place, but " no one ever found indirect proof of any kind that a 

 special creation had taken place," he affirms that indirect evidence has 

 been accumulated to an enormous extent to show that the earth is full 

 of " special creations." If no one, he proceeds to say, ever saw a special 

 creation take place, neither has any one ever seen an instance in which 

 an animal of one species has been evolved out of another of a different 

 species. Considering that the evolution of a species is conceived and 

 uniformly represented as a process requiring multiplied generations 

 for its accomplishment, whereas special creation, if it ever occurred 

 before witnesses, would, we must suppose, be as observable a thing as 

 the shooting of a meteor across the sky, the cases are not quite parallel. 

 Of course, it is open to the creationist to say that no act of creation 

 has taken place since man was called into being ; but if so, it must be 

 admitted that the evolutionist, who does not require to say that the pro- 

 cesses in which he believes came to a stop very long ago, but who 

 affirms, on the contrary, that the laws of evolution are just as active 

 now as they ever were, has slightly the advantage. Moreover, the 

 evolutionist, if he can not crowd centuries into an hour, and show the 

 transformation of species and genera accomplishing itself before our 

 eyes, can point to changes now in progress which, if continued through 

 the ages, could not fail to produce the widest divergences in animal 

 and vegetable forms. The creationist has absolutely nothing to show 

 us that hints at or points to creation as the term is commonly under- 

 stood the flashing of something out of nothing. Mr. Curtis would 

 fain persuade us that Shakespeare's production of " Hamlet " is an act 

 of creation analogous, comparing small things with great, to the crea- 

 tion of the world. The idea is a little preposterous. Did " Hamlet " 

 come out of nothing in any sense whatever ? Was it not a special 

 combination of ideas, experiences, imaginations, conceptions, that were 

 part of the personality of the dramatist ? And these experiences, im- 

 aginations, etc., were they not the result of the author's contact with 

 the outer world ? Are not all the words used to express even our 

 most abstract mental operations, borrowed from the phenomena of 

 daily life ? The fact that " Hamlet " was not a creation in the theologi- 

 cal sense is proved by the simple consideration that it was the work 

 of the individual William Skakespeare, and came forth from his brain 

 as it could not have come forth from any other brain. Why should a 



