154 The Evolution Hypothesis. 



the proof is not such as would determine the framing 

 of any hypothesis worthy of being regarded as more 

 than the merest guess. There is no practical business 

 in which such evidence as is adduced would be regarded 

 as of any real worth. Why should it not be main- 

 tained that a differentiated condition was the original 

 and is the normal state of the physical universe, and 

 that every seeming homogeneity is a departure from 

 that normal condition, possibly through the inter- 

 actions of forces producing effects analogous to those 

 breaks of uniformity which present an appearance of 

 exception to the known laws of nature ? The suppo- 

 sition is as good as its opposite, and it is more nearly 

 conformable to fact ; for science has no knowledge in 

 any field of the actual existence of an " indefinite, inco- 

 herent homogeneity." If there be such, it is, on Mr. 

 Spencer's principles, unknowable. Differentiation is- 

 the necessary form of all definite concepts. Not only is 

 it necessary in thought ; it is invariable in experience. 

 There is no such thing known as a concrete existence 

 which is homogeneous ; nor is there any existing thing, 

 the explanation of which, so far as it is within the 

 possibility of knowledge, is furthered by supposing a 

 state of homogeneity. Science begins with differen- 

 tiation. If a Divine Being created the universe, it 

 was as easy for Him to create it in a differentiated 

 form, as in an immeasurable mist-cloud, or imper- 

 ceptible mass, containing within it the cause and law 

 of all things : if the universe is not the work of an 



