268 THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [CHAP. 



of primary religious conceptions as "unscientific," and 

 habitually employ the word " science," when they should 

 limit it by the prefix " physical." This is the more amazing, 

 as not a few of this school adopt the idealist philosophy, and 

 affirm that " matter and force " are but names for certain 

 " modes of consciousness." It might be expected of them 

 at least to admit that opinions which repose on primary and 

 fundamental intuitions are especially and par excellence 

 scientific. 



Such are some of the objections to the Christian concep- 

 tion of God. We may now turn to those which are directed 

 against God as the Creator, i. e., as the absolute originator 

 of the universe, without the employment of any preexisting 

 means or material. This is again considered by Mr. Spen- 

 cer as a thoroughly illegitimate symbolic conception, as 

 much so as the atheistic one the difficulty as to a self- 

 existent Creator being in his opinion equal to that of a self- 

 existent universe. To this it may be replied that both are 

 of course equally unimaginable, but that it is not a question 

 of facility of conception not which is easiest to conceive, 

 but which best accounts for, and accords with, psychological 

 facts ; namely, with the above-mentioned intuitions. It is 

 contended that we have these primary intuitions, and that 

 with these the conception of a self-existent Creator is per- 

 fectly harmonious. On the other hand, the notion of a 

 self-existent universe that there is no real distinction 

 between the finite and the infinite that the universe and 

 ourselves are one and the same things with the infinite and 

 the self-existent these assertions, in addition to being un- 

 imaginable, contradict our primary intuitions. 



Mr. Darwin's objections to " Creation " are of quite a 

 different kind, and, before entering upon them, it will be 

 well to endeavor clearly to understand what we mean by 

 " Creation," in the various senses in which the term may be 

 used. 



