ii SOMETHING NEW DONE 113 



in the heavens or on earth. It is as 

 certain as anything in human thought 

 that, when organic life was first intro- 

 duced into the world, something was 

 done some process was employed 

 differing from that by which those forms 

 do now simply reproduce and repeat 

 themselves. 



But the moment this concession has 

 been fully, frankly, and intelligently 

 made, another concession necessarily 

 follows, namely this, that we cannot 

 safely conclude that the first, and more 

 strictly creative, process has never been 

 repeated. Yet this is the assumption 

 tacitly involved in all the current 

 materialistic theories of evolution. They 

 all absolutely depend upon it, although 

 it is seldom if ever avowed. It is an 

 assumption, nevertheless, in favour of 

 which there is assuredly no antecedent 

 probability. On the contrary, the true 



