126 EVOLUTION AND SOCIAL PROGRESS 



a supposition we are in no sense obliged to 

 maintain the first appearance of simple vege- 

 tative forms at this period would be sufficient 

 reason to offer at once the full account of the 

 creation of the entire vegetative kingdom. The 

 fact that almost equally simple forms of animal 

 life apparently followed immediately upon the 

 appearance of the earliest vegetative forms would 

 not conflict with such a plan. 



This should appeal all the more strongly to the 

 evolutionist. If all plants have evolved from one 

 single vegetative cell, then with the appearance of 

 this one cell the entire vegetable world was there 

 in its potentiality. Whether that cell was cre- 

 ated or not is a question beyond the realm of 

 science to decide, although reason proves that 

 creation, as we have shown, is the only logical ex- 

 planation. 



The theory itself that all plants are derived 

 from one single cell, can never of course be estab- 

 lished scientifically. It is a mere surmise, without 

 any evidence, an extreme veature that .scientists 

 were fast discarding in the nineteenth century it- 

 self. Should we, however, not only assume this 

 much, but even proceed further and admit the 

 still more fanciful and baseless assumption that 

 all life forms are derived from a single cell, then 

 that cell too must have been vegetative, and not 

 as yet sentient, according to evolutionist principles. 

 No, matter, therefore, what theory we assume, or 



