THE EVOLUTION OF THE WORLD. 241 



he says, " to assume that it created the whole material 

 of the world in one creative act unthinkable ages ago 

 in such wise that it should be endowed with inviolable 

 laws to control the origin and the progress of living 

 things — that, for instance, here on earth rudimentary 

 organisms should arise from which, without further 

 assistance, the whole of living nature could be evolved, 

 from a primitive bacillus to the graceful palm-wood, 

 from a primitive micrococcus to Solomon's lovely 

 wives or to the brain of Newton. Thus we are 

 content with one creative day, and we derive organic 

 nature mechanically, without the aid of either old 

 or new vitalism." Du Bois-Eeymond here shows, 

 as in the question of consciousness, the shallow and 

 illogical character of his monistic thought. 



According to another still prevalent theory, which 

 may be called " ontological creationism," God not 

 only created the world at large, but also its separate 

 contents. In the Christian world the old Semitic 

 legend of Creation, taken from Genesis, is still very 

 widely accepted ; even among modern scientists it 

 finds an adherent here and there. I have fully 

 entered into the criticism of it in the first 

 chapter of my Natural History of Creation. The 

 following theories may be enumerated as the 

 most interesting modifications of this ontological 

 creationism. 



I. Dualistic creation. — God restricted his inter- 

 ference to two creative acts. First he created the 

 inorganic world, mere dead substance, to which alone 

 the law of energy applies, working blindly and 

 aimlessly in the mechanism of material things and 

 the building of the mountains ; then God attained 

 intelligence and communicated it to the purposive 



B 



