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and with facts derived from the study of past forms of life upon the 

 globe, the evolutionist attempts to penetrate through the long vista of 

 bygone ages till he may rest his speculative gaze upon a vast rotating 

 nebular mass of gaseous matter from which he supposes our universe to 

 have been slowly evolved ; assuming that our planet had a past history 

 of this kind, he must also assume that it rapidly changed from a gaseous 

 to a fluid state before beginning to solidify by the formation of a super- 

 ficial crust, which gradually thickened as the fervent heat of it radiated 

 into space. Until this stage of the earth's history had been far ad" 

 vanced no living thing could have existed upon its surface. Living 

 things must, however, have appeared upon its surface at some very 

 remote epoch, since their remains are to be found far down in the rocks 

 which at present constitute its crust. How, therefore, it may be asked, 

 is the first appearance of life on this earth to be accounted for ] 



We should not invoke an unknown act of creative power unless more 

 ordinary natural causes fail, and it really be found necessary to invent 

 some such a hypothesis. Now, the thorough-going evolutionist repudi- 

 ates the notion of creation in its ordinary sense. He believes that the 

 operation of natural causes working in their accustomed manner were 

 quite adequate to bring into existence a kind of matter presenting a 

 new order of complexity and displaying the phenomena we call life. 

 Living matter is thus supposed to have come into being by the further 

 opei^ations under new conditions of the same agencies as had previously 

 led to the various inorganic constituents of the earth's crust — such 

 mineral and saline substances as we see around us at the present day, 

 so that in accordance with this view we have no more reason to postu- 

 late a miraculous interference or exercise of creative power to account 

 for the evolution of living matter in any suitable portion of the uni- 

 verse, whether on this earth or elsewhere, than to explain the appear- 

 ance of any other kind of matter. The question might be asked 

 whether life still continues to come into existence from inert or lifeless 

 matter 1 Herbert Spencer, the great apostle of evolution, sees no rea- 

 son why it may not do so. Professor Bastian, and a good many others, 

 maintain that it really does so, as proven by a series of experiments 

 extending over a lengthened period. He contends that all the condi- 

 tions of matter necessary to the beginnings of life still exist, and that 



