V 



340 THE BTORY OP THE EARTH AND MAN. 



at once, fully formed, by a special miracle, instead of 

 supposing it to be slowly elaborated tbrougb. countless 

 ages of evolution. To Darwin the doctrine of crea- 

 tion is but " a curious illustration of tbe blindness of 

 preconceived opinion.-'^ ^' These authors/^ he says, 

 *' seem no more startled at a miraculous act of creation 

 than at an ordinary birth ; but do they really believe 

 that at innumerable periods in the earth^s history, 

 certain elemental atoms have been commanded sud- 

 denly to flash into living tissues ? ^' Darwin, with all 

 his philosophic fairness, sometimes becomes almost 

 Spencerian in his looseness of expression ; and in the 

 abovQ extract, the terms " miraculous,'"* " innumer- 

 able," '^ elemental atoms,'' *' suddenly," and " flash," 

 all express ideas in no respect necessary to the work of 

 creation. Those who have no faith in evolution as a 

 cause of the production of species, may well ask in 

 return how the evolutionist can prove that creation 

 must be instantaneous, that it must follow no law, that 

 it must produce an animal fully formed, that it must 

 be miraculous. In short, it is a portion of the pohcy 

 of evolutionists to endeavour to tie down their oppo- 

 nents to a purely gratuitous and ignorant view of 

 creation, and then to attack them in that position. 

 / What, then, is the actual statement of the theory of 

 /creation as it may be' held by a modern man of 

 I science? Simply this; that all things have been 

 I produced by the Supreme Creative Will, acting either 

 \ directly or through the agency of the forces and 

 V materials of His own production. 



