328 SPARKS FROM A GEOLOGIST'S HAMMER. 



good against the " creation theory " which he combats, it 

 is the very foundation of another creation theory more in 

 accord with the Sacred Scriptures. This parallelism of 

 Genesis with science is a fact, whatever may be held re- 

 specting the supernatural origin of the record. 



But now I cannot resist the temptation to return to 

 Professor Huxley's starting point and attempt to ascer- 

 tain what he proposed and what he accomplished. He 

 set out with a promise to present certain " untenable " 

 theories, and to argue them down. One of these is what 

 he styled the " creation theory." Now creation refers to 

 pi-imordial origins. That which appears as a term in a 

 series of physical causation may be said, in the language 

 of science, to be " caused," but it cannot be said to be 

 created. If evolution, as Professor Huxley maintains, is 

 a self-operating process (however begun), then any new 

 organism springing into being is not " created " ; it is 

 produced by evolution. In this view of evolution noth- 

 ing in the course of natural events can be called created; 

 and the lecturer argued logically from his assumptions. 

 But then, if nothing in the course of natural events is 

 created, it is quite clear that creation refers to something 

 not in the course of natural events. That there must 

 have been causal activity not in the course of natural 

 events is obvious from the lecturer's argument that the 

 course of events must be finite and not eternal. It there- 

 fore had a beginning, and some adequate power caused 

 that beginning. The exertion of the power requisite to 

 install a course of natural events was not an event in 

 the course of natural events. It was an event incalcula- 

 bly greater than any natural event. It was a primordial 

 origination not depending on any antecedent term, or 



