WHAT IS CREATION? 233 



Arid now, without attempting to follow him into 

 all the details of his vast investigation, and accept- 

 ing as true all that is involved in the nebular and 

 evolution hypotheses, can we also give credence 

 to what we find in Genesis ? In a word, are 

 Creation and Evolution synonymous terms? May 

 we affirm that what the author of Genesis calls 

 Creation is practically and in principle the same 

 thing as Evolution ? 



In order to answer this question in the affirmative, 

 we should have to make many demands in regard 

 to details ; we should have to point out that abrupt- 

 ness of change, as well as those gradual modifications 

 which he postulates, have transpired in the advances 

 which geological and biological science records, 

 and especially that mighty upheavals in life and 

 organization have seemed to occur where ordinary 

 conditions appear quite inadequate and incommen- 

 surable. But leaving all this out of consideration, 

 is there anything in the Mosaic narrative incon- 

 sistent with the doctrine that Creation is an 

 evolution, a process, a law ? 



The idea, once common, that each star, each 

 species of plant and animal, was made separately 

 by a sort of mechanical process, is, we think, quite 

 obsolete, and deserves to be. It never had a better 

 foundation than a gross misinterpretation of the 

 language of Genesis. And although it is to science 

 that we owe the explosion of the error, now that 

 it is exploded we wonder it could ever have been 

 maintained. The utmost that can now be affirmed 

 with regard to the Mosaic language is that one 



