4 THE CREED OF SCIENCE, RELIGIOUS AND MORAL. 



of which Science has no knowledge and can form no 

 guess. 



The hypothesis of creation in time need not be long 

 considered, because the thing itself is in fact unthinkable. 

 Creation ex nihilo, the creation of matter from pure 

 nothing, is entirely unthinkable ; * while creation in the 

 less proper sense of architectonic world-building from 

 pre-existing materials, though not beyond the reach of a 

 certain rude anthropomorphic imagination, is an unsatis- 

 factory and inadequate explanation, for besides that the 

 highest philosophic thought lends no countenance to such 

 a conception, it is also opposed to the view which geology 

 has accustomed us to take of the extremely slow tran- 

 sition of our earth through an indefinite series of changes, 

 due to the action of natural causes, which still continue 

 their work. It is opposed to the whole modern concep- 

 tion of evolution, which, however satisfactory or other- 

 wise it may itself turn out as a complete hypothesis (a 

 point to be considered in its turn), has at least so far 

 established its claims on our credit as to set aside in 

 comparison the notion of the sudden construction of the 

 earth and worlds by a world-builder. We are still at 

 liberty, indeed, to believe in a Power, one and eternal, 

 immanent in matter, and moving it when it is supposed 

 to move by its own laws ; but, though we may even con- 

 tinue in imagination to represent this Power as still at 

 work like the architect or the engineer, we can no longer 

 believe in it as really working in such fashion, or concede 

 to the conception of the Great Architect who fashioned 



* See Critique of Pure Reason, p. 139, Meikle John's translation, where 

 Kant, treating of " The Permanence of Substance," tells us that creation 

 and annihilation are alike inconceivable in the field of possible ex- 

 perience, and that the two ma.xims, " Gigni de nihilo nihil," (( in nihilum 

 nil posse reverti," should never be separated. 



See also Herbert Spencer's First Principles, ch. iv., " On the Inde- 

 structibility of Matter." 



