Darwinism and Deity. 3 1 



unit, not made up of particles, is itself an ultimate par- 

 ticle, and can not be made from anything else. Hence, 

 the soul of each person, the Me, must be an original 

 creation. 



Plato held that the soul of each person, or what he 

 called the spiritual and immortal body, was brought 

 into being by a direct act of creative power; but also 

 maintained that all souls were created in the beginning, 

 and that they transmigrate from body to body. 



Now, if we reject the doctrine of transmigration, but 

 agree that the birth of each human soul is an act of di- 

 rect creation, there arises an antecedent probability that 

 the coming into being of every new form of life, every 

 species, has been due to acts of specific creation. 



Men of science have said that this antecedent prob- 

 ability is verified by the facts of geology. It is agreed 

 by all that the earth's surface has undergone great 

 changes ; that continents have been submerged, and 

 again elevated ; that arctic and torrid climates have suc- 

 ceeded each other in territories now lying in the tern- 

 perate zone. And it is said by some that the different 

 superimposed strata indicate that there have been breaks 

 in the continuity of life; that at times some great ca- 

 tastrophe has destroyed all life, leaving only fossil epi- 

 taphs ; and that new forms of life followed with nothing 

 to generate them, with no way of their coming into 

 being but by a new exercise of creative power. 



It is further said that these successive creations are all 

 in harmony with a purpose or design ; and that this 

 same purpose or design is exhibited even in certain 

 present phases, as in the progressive stages of the hu- 



