in A WRONG PRESUMPTION 135 



inconsistencies in this matter, they use 

 arguments which we cannot accept as 

 resting on any solid basis. Thus Mr. 

 Spencer argues in his article that if the 

 Creator had willed to form all those 

 creatures, He surely would have led 

 them along lines of direct growth from 

 the germ to the finished form, and would 

 not have led them through so many 

 stages of metamorphoses. 1 We have 

 no antecedent knowledge of the Creator 

 which can possibly entitle us to form 

 any such presumption as to His methods 

 of operation. This is one answer. But 

 there is another. The method which is 

 supposed by Mr. Spencer to be incon- 

 sistent with the operations of a mind 

 and will is the same method which is 

 our own, and which is universally pre- 

 valent in the Universe. Everything is 

 done by the use of means ; everything 

 1 P. 745- 



