192 The Development Theory. 



If the power and wisdom of a creating 

 God stand behind that missing link, no mat- 

 ter where it occurs in the creation of a piece 

 of granite itself or of the atoms of which it 

 is composed. And yet one might say in pass- 

 ing, of these missing links in all systems, that 

 there is no obvious gain in making the argu- 

 ment from design to hang rather on the ab- 

 sent than upon the present link, as if a broken 

 link in a chain should be made to commend 

 the skill of the mechanic more than if it were 

 unbroken. 



Several years ago the astronomer La- 

 Place published a hypothesis of development 

 applied to the solar system, in which the claim 

 was made that the sun, moon and planets were 

 not created one by one from nothing by di- 

 vine power, but that the matter of which they 

 are composed once existed diffused through 

 space; that this matter was drawn together 

 by the mutual attraction of its particles; was 

 condensed into such position as to give play 

 to its chemical forces; that this condensation 

 developed motion in the whole mass, causing 



