34^ THE HISTORY OF CREATION". 



appears to us as a simple and necessary event in the pro- 

 cess of the development of the earth. We admit that this 

 process, as long as it is not directly observed or repeated by 

 experiment, remains a pure hypothesis. But I must again 

 say that this hypothesis is indispensable for the consistent 

 completion of the non-miraculous history of creation, that 

 it has absolutely nothing forced or miraculous about it, 

 and that certainly it can never be positively refuted. It 

 must be taken into consideration that the process of spon- 

 taneous generation, even if it still took place daily and 

 hourly, would in any case be exceedingly difficult to observe 

 and establish with absolute certainty as such. With regard 

 to the Monera, we find ourselves placed before the following 

 alternative : either they are actually directly derived from 

 pre-existing, or " created," most ancient Monera, and in this 

 case they would have had to propagate themselves un- 

 changed for many millions of years, and to have maintained 

 their original form of simple particles of plasma ; or, the 

 "present Monera have originated much later in the course of 

 the organic history of the earth, by repeated acts of spon- 

 taneous generation, and in this case spontaneous generation 

 may take place now as well as then. The latter suppo- 

 sition has evidently much more probability on its side than 

 the former. 



If we do not accept the hjrpothesis of spontaneous 

 generation, then at this one point of the history of develop- 

 ment we must have recourse to the miracle of a super- 

 natural creation. The Creator must have created the first 

 organism, or a few first organisms, from which all others are 

 derived, and as such he must have created the simjDlest 

 Monera, or primseval cytods, and given them the capability 



