474 CO&MIC FMILOSOFMY. [ft. in. 



of physical phenomena, certain psychical prejudices, certain 

 social customs, having existed with tolerable uniformity over 

 a limited portion of the earth's surface, it is assumed either 

 that the given phenomena have always existed, or at least 

 that they enter by divine pre- arrangement into the eternal 

 order of things in such a way that any thorough-going 

 alteration of them must involve universal anarchy and ruin. 

 The fundamental doctrine of the philosophy which is deter- 

 mined by this statical habit of interpreting phenomena, is 

 the Doctrine of Creation. The world is supposed to have 

 been suddenly brought into existence at some assignable 

 epoch, since which time it has remained substantially un- 

 altered. Existing races of sentient creatures are held to 

 have been created by a miraculous fiat in accordance with 

 sundry organic types which, as representing unchangeable 

 ideas in the Divine Mind, can never be altered by physical 

 circumstances. The social institutions also, amid which the 

 particular statical theory originates, are either referred back 

 to the foundation of the world, as is the case in early and 

 barbaric mythologies ; or else, as is the case with modern 

 uneducated Christians, they are supposed to have been intro- 

 duced by miracle at a definite era of history. In similar 

 wise the existing order of things is legitimately to endure 

 until abruptly terminated by the direct intervention of an 

 extra-cosmic Power endowed with the anthropomorphic 

 attributes of cherishing intentions and of acting out its 

 good pleasure. Facts of palaeontology, such as the extinc- 

 tion of myriads of ancient animal and vegetal species, are 

 explained as the result of innumerable catastrophes deter- 

 mined by this same extra-cosmic Deity; and strange geo- 

 logic phenomena are interpreted by the myth of a universal 

 deluge which left them once for all just as we see them. 

 Likewise the social institutions and the religious beliefs 

 now existing by express divine sanction, must remain essen- 

 tially unaltered under penalty of divine wrath as manifested 



