184 THE METAPHYSICS OF EVOLUTION. 



For it is clear that things cannot go on indefinitely 

 being merged into other things, for the last thing 

 would have nothing else for it to be merged into. 



There remains, then, the third case, viz., that our 

 theory of Evolution traces all things back to the 

 point where they arise out of nothing. 



But is this an explanation ? Have we gained 

 anything by showing laboriously and with an im- 

 mense mass of illustration how A arises out of B, 

 B out of C, etc., until we come to Z, and say that 

 Z arises out of nothing ? 



And so we are, finally, confronted with this 

 unthinkable miracle of the creation of all things out 

 of nothing, as the final completion and logical per- 

 fection of the historical explanation ! And yet it 

 is an axiomatic principle of human thought that 

 things cannot arise out of nothing, i.e., causelessly ! ^ 



§ 9. And that origination out of nothing is not 

 merely the logical conclusion to which a consistent 

 use of the historical explanation must lead, appears 

 from the fact that it has already been not obscurely 

 asserted in certain evolutionist theories. 



If we follow the bolder theories of the evolution- 

 ists, as illustrating the logical development of the 

 method, without for the moment considering whether 

 they are justified by the scientific data, we find that 

 they derive all the phenomena of human life from 

 the properties of original protoplasm. And they 

 do not hesitate to carry us beyond this and to con- 

 struct histories of " biogenesis," intended to account 

 for the origin of life out of inorganic matter. They 

 may attack the problem in a purely mechanical 

 manner by regarding the phenomena of life as 

 differing only in degree from processes of combina- 

 ^ Ex nihilo nihil ; in nihilum nil posse reverti. 



I 



