440 COSMIC 1'llILOSOPHY. [pt. ii. 



thesis, originating in the crude mythological conceptions of 

 the ancient Hebrews, and uncritically accepted until the time 

 of Lamarck and Goethe, in deference to a tradition which 

 invested these mythological conceptions with a peculiar and 

 unwarranted sacredness, is known as the Doctrine of Special 

 Creations. The latter hypothesis, originating in the methodical 

 study of the phenomena of organic life, held by a large 

 number of biologists during the first half of the present 

 century, and of late years accepted by nearly all, may be 

 called the Doctrine of Derivation. 



In describing the special-creation hypothesis, we are con- 

 fronted by an initial difficulty, due to the enormous change 

 which has occurred in men's habits of thinking since the 

 mythopceic age when it first gained currency. The Hebrew 

 writer, indeed, presents us with a concrete picture of the 

 creation of man, according to which a homogeneous clay 

 model of the human form is, in some inconceivable way, at 

 once transmuted into the wonderfully heterogeneous combina- 

 tion of organs and tissues, with all their definite and highly 

 specialized aptitudes, of which actually living man is made 

 up. But I suppose there are few scientific writers at the 

 present day who would be found willing to risk their reputa- 

 tion for common-sense by attempting to defend such a con- 

 ception. The few naturalists who still make a show of 

 upholding the special-creation hypothesis, are very careful to 

 refrain from anything like a specification of the physical 

 processes which that hypothesis may be supposed to imply. 

 When overtly challenged, they find it safest to shrink from 

 the direct encounter, taking refuge in grandiloquent phrases 

 about " Creative Will " and the " free action of an Intelligent 

 Power," very much as the cuttle-fish extricates itself from a 

 disagreeable predicament by hiding in a shower of its own 

 ink. But, however commendable such phrases may be when 

 regarded as a general confession of faith, they are much 

 worse than useless when employed as substitutes for a 



