EVOLUTION THE MASTER-KEY 



Surely no one will suggest any exercise of a deliber- 

 ate creative act so apparently purposeless as the 

 formation of living vegetation on the surface of 

 the moon. 



Of course all this conflicts with the popular no- 

 tion of the Eternal power. But, on the other hand, 

 it perfectly consorts with the philosophic conception 

 of the Eternal who sustains and informs all things, 

 the "All-Upholder," as Goethe calls Him. Sup- 

 pose that all the phenomena of stars and suns, of 

 life and of mind, be reduced beyond dispute, to the 

 law of continuity. Suppose that we know in de- 

 tail the steps by which the Book of Job or the pre- 

 lude to "Parsifal" evolved from the nebula which 

 developed into the solar system; suppose that we 

 can explain not only life itself, but even the genesis 

 of such as these, its noblest products can we 

 escape from the overwhelming consciousness of the 

 Eternal and eternally creative power " from which 

 all things proceed?" Assuredly not; he who has 

 some conception of the Eternal as nearly adequate 

 as the poor human mind can form, will be no whit 

 disturbed to learn that Dr. Bastian is right, or 

 some day that life can be manufactured at will 

 in the laboratory ; for pray how would such manu- 

 facture exclude or deny or derogate from the in- 

 effableness of the power that "rolls through all 

 things?" 



While these pages were passing through the 

 press, Mr. Butler Burke, of the Cavendish Labora- 

 114 



