3l8 TPIE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



for admiring the power and wisdom of the Creator than in 

 the independent creation of different species. 



If, taking this point of view, we were to explain the 

 origin of the first terrestrial organisms, from which all the 

 others are descended, as due to the action of a personal 

 Creator acting according to a definite plan, we should of 

 course have to renounce all scientific knowledge of the 

 process, and pass from the domain of true science to the 

 completely distinct domain of poetical faith. By assuming 

 a supernatural act of creation we should be taking a leap 

 into the inconceivable. Before we decide upon this latter 

 step, and thereby renounce all pretension to a scientific 

 knowledge of the process, we are at all events in duty 

 bound to endeavour to examine it in the light of a mechani- 

 cal hypothesis. We must at least examine whether this 

 process is really so wonderful, and whether we cannot form 

 a tenable conception of a completely non-miraculous origin 

 of the first primary organism. We might then be able 

 entirely to reject miracle in creation. 



It will be necessary for this purpose, fii'st of all, to go 

 back further into the past, and to examine the history of 

 the creation of the earth. Going back still further, we 

 shall find it necessary to consider the history of the crea- 

 tion of the whole universe in its most general outlines. 

 All my readers undoubtedly know that from the struc- 

 ture of the earth, as it is at present known to us, the 

 notion has been derived, and as yet has not been refuted, 

 that its interior is in a fiery fluid condition, and that the 

 firm crust, composed of difierent strata, on the surface 

 of which organisms are living, forms only a very thin 

 pellicle or shell round the fiery fluid centre. We have 



