IvL PREFATORY REMARKS 



scopic cells, — that the fundamental form of organic being is a 

 cell having new cells forming within itself In that axiom, 

 per se, there may be doubtless some physiological truth, which, 

 rightly accepted, need in no way interfere with the great facts 

 and mysteries of creation, varied through space and time 

 even ad infinitum. The cell which contains the future oak, 

 and that which contains the future human being, may be as 

 essentially distinct in their kinds, and may no less require an 

 intelligent deviser, and the forthputting of 'creative power, 

 than the grown oak and mature human being. They are, if 

 possible, more wonderful, as being more beyond imitation by 

 any contrivance of art. By the creation of microscopic cells 

 God may originate new species when it pleases Him, or, ex- 

 ceptionally, by the creation of full-grown individuals. The 

 fact of creative power implies an absence of limit to creative 

 power. If we believe that God has created a single micro- 

 scopic cell, containing the germ of a single species, within 

 the past eternity, we must be as philosophically right in be- 

 lieving that he can repeat that act at intervals of ages, years, 

 hours, or moments, — that He may be so occupied now, if not 

 on this planet, in some other part of space. 



But Mr Darwin's efforts at belief do not lie in this direc- 

 tion. He imagines a series of strata, not pre-Adamite sim- 

 ply, but what, for want of another word, we may term pre- 

 geological, in which the types of all living organisms had 

 their primeval habitat " If my theory be true," he says, 

 " it is indisputable that, before the lowest Silurian stratum 

 was deposited, long periods elapsed, — as long as, or probably 

 far longer than, the whole interval from the Silurian age to 

 the present day ; and that, during these vast yet quite un- 



