37^ GEOLOGICAL BIOLOGY. 



and chemistry is based on the assumption that these properties 

 persist without change. 



But in the case of organisms their characters are constantly 

 changing, and evolution as a theory is based upon the assump- 

 tion of not only constant but progressive change. The origi- 

 nation of the organic characters was not done all at once, but 

 evolution as the mode of creation of organisms has been more 

 ■or less continuous throughout the geological ages. It is this 

 continuation of the process of phenomenalizing that distin- 

 guishes the mode of creation in the organic realm from that in 

 the lower realm of inorganic matter. Whatever is character- 

 istic of organisms was not created at once in any remote be- 

 ginning, but has been unfolded by degrees, and there is no 

 reason for supposing that the process is not still going on. 

 Such expressions as "effort," "growth force," "conscious 

 endeavor, "reactions, "producing modification." "deter- 

 mination," " memory," etc., used in describing the phenomena 

 of evolution, all exjoress the notion of the pre-existence of 

 some unphenomenal property, or power, or potency, which 

 constitutes the cause of the particular characters which are 

 acquired by organisms in the process of their evolution. 



The Evolutional Idea an Enlargement of the Conception of God 

 as Creator. — On the assumption that the ideas of creation md 

 Creator are fundamental to a rational explanation of the 

 universe — and such an assumption seems to be a logical neces- 

 sity to account for any intrinsic heterogeneity — we observe 

 that the effect of adding the idea of evolution to creation en- 

 larges the conception of creation by making it a continuing 

 process instead of an ancient act, and brings God into the 

 midst of the present universe. 



The purpose of the living God then becomes immanent 

 by continuously phenomenalizing itself into living form. God 

 thus becomes a living, present, active reality in the existing 

 universe, and the course of the evolution of organisms be- 

 comes in a true sense the history of creation. This term 

 " Schopfungsgeschichte " was chosen by Haeckel for the title 

 •of his treatise on the laws of evolution, and in one of its 

 closing chapters he acknowledged that there are only two ways 

 of accounting for the original organisms — spontaneous genera- 



