152 THE CREATION OF MATTER 



being of protoplasm is the first step. We have already 

 dealt with it and its power of reproducing its kind, its 

 power of feeding, growing, dividing, and so multiplying. 

 We have also dealt with cells of which organisations are 

 built up, and with the specialised cells or eggs which, 

 obeying the law of heredity, build them. We now there- 

 fore come to the laws of variation and progress. 



The laws of variation and progress. Gradually by 

 these laws amoebae came into being, infusoria, worms, 

 insects, star-fish, shell-fish, spiders, fish, birds, quadrupeds, 

 and men. By the law of variation alone, protoplasm 

 would have produced protoplasm in great variety, but it 

 would only have been protoplasm. Cells, if they had in 

 some way been brought into being, would have yielded 

 varieties of cells. Infusoria, worms, and every kind of 

 animal would have yielded varieties of their own kind. 

 But the variations made advances. The forces at work 

 carried them forward to higher and ever more compli- 

 cated variations, until they culminated in the highest, 

 with their myriads of wonders. This course of evolution, 

 as we contemplate it, is of overmastering grandeur. The 

 bodies it exhibits to us, the individual organs it presents 

 to our view, the triumphs it sets before our eyes, no 

 language can do justice to. All over the fields of life 

 there has been a determined and uninterrupted march 

 forward. Onward and upward has been the motto of 

 nature, onward to greater complexity, upward to higher 

 excellency. It does not appear that the weaker which 

 perished were monstrosities. There is no reason to believe 

 that evolution advanced in millions of wrong directions, 

 along centillions of unfit lines, and by chance discovered 

 the right line. Like the combinations of chemistry, its 

 products have been useful and good, splendid in pro- 

 portion and elegant in form. The onward march to the 



