CHAPTER V 
SOME MODERN VIEWS AND PRESENT-DAY 
MISCONCEPTIONS 
i ae accordance with the facts set forth in the 
previous chapters, there would be no more 
reason for postulating a miraculous interference or 
exercise of Creative Power to account for the evolu- 
tion of living matter in any suitable portion of the 
Universe (whether on this Earth or elsewhere), than 
to explain the appearance of any other kind of 
matter—the magnetic oxide of iron, or gold, or 
radium, for instance. 
But to suppose the formation of living matter to 
have occurred once only, or to have been limited to 
the time of its first appearance on this earth, instead 
of imagining that, like other physico-chemical 
changes, its production is, and has been, an ever- 
recurring process, would be tantamount to regarding 
it as a quasi-miraculous process—a something not 
occurring under the influence of natural laws. The 
language used, however, and the attitude taken by 
some of the leading exponents of the doctrine of 
Evolution in this country has unquestionably tended 
to foster some such view. 
Thus speaking of the probable commencement of 
Life upon our globe, Darwin said}: ‘I believe that 
1“ Origin of Species,” 6th ed., 1872, pp. 424 and 429. 
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