CREATION IN PROGRESS. 227 



as extinctions. We rest on this as a matter of faith, 

 though human observation has hitherto been so partial and 

 limited, that it is only of late it has been enabled to estab- 

 lish the one, and is just beginning (in the question of the 

 variation of species) to direct attention to the other. 



There is, however, no error more common than to con- 

 sider creation as a thing accomplished to regard it as an 

 act rather than a work still in progress. Go back to the 

 earliest condition imagination is able to picture condense 

 this globe from nebulous masses floating in ether cool and 

 consolidate its crust from igneous matter, or call it at once 

 into being by the fiat of a word, it is now as it was then a 

 scheme in the process of creation. All its rock-matter has 

 been and is continually changing, and assuming new forms 

 and distributions. The muds and sands of our present 

 shores will be the rocks of some future hills, and the rocks 

 of our hills the sediments of the ocean of some after epoch. 

 So in like manner with its Vitality. The genera and species 

 have been continually changing and pressing forward under 

 the operation of pre-appointed laws to new and different 

 forms. Call this by what name you will, it is in purpose 

 as it is in effect, Creation. Interpose a thousand secondary 

 causes establish a law for every act, and try to remove by 

 the widest distance the worker from his work still, these 

 "causes" and "laws" are of themselves utterly impotent, 

 unless sustained and directed as immediately now as they 

 were when first "the Spirit of God moved upon the face of 

 the waters." As we fail to detect any symptom of decay, 

 so we cannot admit the idea of cessation, but must believe 

 in the advent of new races as implicitly as we believe in 

 the physical changes which more directly and forcibly 

 appeal to our observation. 



