352 THE STOET OF THE EARTH AND MAN. 



the theory of creation and design is infinitely more 

 rational and scientific than that of evolution in any 

 of its forms. 



But all this does not relieve us from the question, 

 How can species be created? the same question 

 put to Paul by the sceptics of the first century with 

 reference to the resurrection (C How are the dead 

 raised, and with what bodies do they come?" I 

 do not wish to evade this question, whether applied 

 to man or to a microscopic animalcule, and I would 

 answer it with the following statements : 



1. The advocate of creation is in this matter in 

 no worse position than the evolutionist. This we have 

 already shown, and I may refer here to the fact 

 that Darwin himself assumes at least one primitive 

 form of animal and plant life, and he is confessedly 

 just as little able to imagine this one act of creation 

 as any other that may be demanded of him. 



2. We are not bound to believe that all groups 

 of individual animals, which naturalists may call 

 species, have been separate products of creation. Man 

 himself has by some naturalists been divided into 

 several species ; but we may well be content to believe 

 the creation of one primitive form, and the production 

 of existing races by variation. Every zoologist and 

 botanist who has studied any group of animals or 

 plants with care, knows that there are numerous 

 related forms passing into each other, which some 

 naturalists might consider to be distinct species, but 

 which it is certainly not necessary to regard as distinct 



