a sl ee ey oe Diss ab AN iis Bh Balle! 
12 AN OUTLINE OF THE THEORY. 
these laws in connection with the modifying influences 
of environment (surroundings,—soil, climate, etc.) ac- 
count for and explain the various species that have ex- 
isted in the past and now exist upon earth, man included. 
That there are no gaps in the process but that there is 
demonstrable a steady ascent from lower to higher 
(simple to more complex) forms of life, until man is 
reached, the acknowledged highest product of evolution. 
The extreme evolutionists hold that all the power 
and potency of the universe was stored up in that primor- 
dial cell, and that all things have been worked out with- 
out any superintending agency other than the forces 
resident in matter. Every operation of God is ruled out, 
or deemed unnecessary. This is sometimes called 
atheistic evolution. 
The theistic evolutionist (“theistic’ from “theism,” 
the belief in a personal God) makes place for God in 
the beginning and all along the line of development, as 
overlooking the process, perhaps reinforcing and to a 
certain extent directing the energy, but not interfering 
with the fixed law or rule of evolution. According to 
theistic evolution, God did not create plants and animals 
as separate species (as related in Genesis 1) but created 
matter as a crude form and placed it under certain 
laws, by which this matter was, during untold ages, 
gradually evolved into worlds. That out of this matter, 
called inorganic, plants came into existence, from some 
germ or property existing in matter. The origin of 
animal life is explained in various ways by the so- 
called theistic evolutionists. Some hold that the primor- 
dial plant life contained potentially the lowest and 
simplest principles of animal life, and from it the simplest 
animal forms were evolved; that from these latter 
were evolved forms a little higher, until, after long 
ages, all the gradations were passed through until man, 
