144 "SPECIAL CREATION' 1 



explanation of the universe. Some of them, 

 whose reasoning is a little difficult to follow, 

 seem to be content with an immanent, blind god, 

 a mere mainspring to the clock, making it move, 

 no doubt, but otherwise powerless. If we neglect 

 in a mathematical sense those who adopt the 

 agnostic attitude ; content themselves with the 

 formula ignoramus et ignorabimus of Du Bois 

 Reymond, and confine their investigations to the 

 machine as a going machine without inquiring 

 how it came to be a machine or what set it to work, 

 we shall, I think, find that most people who have 

 really thought out the question admit that the 

 only reasonable explanation of things as they are, 

 is the postulation of a Free First Cause ; in other 

 words, an Omnipotent Creator of the universe. 

 Such, of course, is the teaching of the Scriptures 

 and of the Church, and it must be admitted that 

 neither of them carries us very much further in 

 this matter. In fact, whilst both are perfectly 

 clear and definite about the fact of creation, 

 neither of them has much to say about the 

 method. Yet, as all admit, evolution concerns 

 only the method and tells us absolutely nothing 

 about the cause. 



Being omnipotent, it is obvious that its Maker 

 might have created the universe in any way 

 which seemed good to Him for example, all 

 at once out of nothing just as it stands at this 

 moment. Such a thing would not be impossible 

 to Omnipotence; and, as we know, Fallopius, 

 suddenly confronted by the problems of fossils in 

 the sixteenth century, did suggest that they were 



