20 MODERN IDEAS OF EVOLUTION 



(creation. If he should be able to reduce them to a 

 much smaller number, even ultimately to only one 

 kind of matter, he would not by such discovery be 

 enabled to dispense with a Creator, but would only 

 have penetrated a little more deeply into His methods 

 of procedure. The biological question is, no doubt, 

 much more intricate and difficult than the chemical, 

 but is of the same general character. On the prin 

 ciples of Biblical theism, it may be stated in this way: 

 God has created all living beings according to their 

 kinds or species, but with capacities for variation and 

 change under the laws which He has enacted for them. 

 Can we ascertain any of the methods of such creation 

 or making, and can we know how many of the forms 

 which we have been in the habit of naming as distinct 

 species coincide with His creative species, and how 

 many are really results of their variations under the 

 laws of reproduction and heredity, and the influence 

 of their surroundings ? 



I may add that this introductory chapter is neces 

 sarily a very general summary of the questions to 

 which it relates, and that its positions will be much 

 strengthened by our detailed consideration of those 

 marvellous structures and functions of animals and 

 plants which modern science has revealed to us, and 

 their wonderful history in geological time. These are 

 facts so stupendous in their intricacy and vastness 

 that they make the relation of God to the origination 

 and history of any humble animal or plant as grand 



