THE SPECIAL-CREATION-HYPOTHESIS. 429 



many of which produce great suffering and not unfrequently 

 death. What interpretation is to be put on these facts 'by 

 those who espouse the hypothesis of special creations? Ac- 

 cording to this hypothesis, all these parasites were designed 

 for their respective modes of life. They were endowed with 

 constitutions fitting them to live by absorbing nutriment 

 from the human body; they were furnished with appliances, 

 often of a formidable kind, enabling them to root themselves 

 in and upon the human body; and they were made prolific 

 in an almost incredible degree, that their germs might have 

 a sufficient number of chances of finding their way into the 

 human body. In short, elaborate contrivances were com- 

 bined to insure the continuance of their respective races; 

 and to make it impossible for the successive generations of 

 men to avoid being preyed on by them. What shall we say 

 to this arrangement ? Shall we say that " the head and 

 crown of things," was provided as a habitat for these para- 

 sites? Shall we say that these degraded creatures, incapable 

 of thought or enjoyment, were created that they might cause 

 human misery? One or other of these alternatives must be 

 chosen by those who contend that every kind of organism 

 was separately devised by the Creator. Which do they 

 prefer? With the conception of two antagonist powers, 

 which severally work good and evil in the world, the facts 

 are congruous enough. But with the conception of a supreme 

 beneficence, this gratuitous infliction of pain is absolutely 

 incompatible. 



115. See then the results of our examination. The 

 belief in special creations of organisms arose among men 

 during the era of profoundest darkness; and it belongs to a 

 family of beliefs which have nearly all died out as enlighten- 

 ment has increased. It is without a solitary established fact 

 on which to stand; and when the attempt is made to put it 

 into definite shape in the mind, it turns out to be only a 

 pseud-idea. This mere verbal hypothesis, which men idly 



