194 THE LAW. 



and species are but modifications of these types ; but how, 

 or by what process they were modified, science cannot tell, 

 any more than it can account for the creation of the type 

 itself. This much we know if the geological record is to 

 be trusted that age after age new forms of life have made 

 their appearance, differing in what naturalists would term 

 generic and specific aspects, but still bearing to the great 

 primal patterns, and to each other, certain definite and ap- 

 preciable affinities ; and as we are not entitled to place vital 

 phenomena any more than physical phenomena beyond the 

 pale of natural law, we are bound, in the spirit of philoso- 

 phy, to seek inductively for the causes of these successive 

 introductions. In the whole world around us we see 

 nothing but the activities of secondary causes ; and though 

 Reason has yet failed to detect the mode in which new 

 life-forms are produced, Faith may surely be allowed to be- 

 lieve in their genetic connection by some continuously oper- 

 ating law. To such a law science can give no satisfactory 

 expression ; and in the mean time the idea of NEW CREA- 

 TIONS is, if not the most philosophical, at least the most 

 prevalent belief, just as it is the most convenient term, 

 perhaps, whereby we can describe the phenomena in ques- 

 tion. Instead of the term " new creations," some palaeon- 

 tologists, with a view to avoid an opinion, make use of the 

 phrases, "the first appearance," and the "introduction" of 

 new races. Little, however, is gained by this evasion. 

 If new species do enter upon the stage of being, and we 

 cannot explain how or by what process they come, then 

 they are to us, to all intents and purposes, new creations. 

 It may not be a new creation in the sense of a direct and 

 miraculous interference on the part of Creative Power ; but 

 it is the equivalent of creation through the operation of 

 a law defined by the prescience of a Creator, and producing 

 its results at determinate times, over determinate areas, 



