ON THE CEEATION AND GOD. 37 



There was no special Providence watching over his 

 cradle, any more than a Creator which specially fashioned 

 and instructed him. 



Now, it is extremely difficult or wholly impossible to 

 trace the operation of mind in this process. There is no 

 room allowed for it. The more we read the story of 

 Darwin, the further and further the notion and the 

 possibility of mind recedes. The species in the organic 

 worlds are brought into being in much the same fashion 

 as the physical worlds in the system of Democritus, 

 namely, by chance. For in that system, after many un- 

 successful trials and momentary adhesions of the atoms, 

 after ephemeral worlds had been born and dissolved again 

 in the course of a day,* at length a particular combi- 

 nation of the atoms occurred, which, as the event turned 

 out, had permanent cohesion in it, from which resulted 

 the solid universe, and, in a like fashion, all that is 

 therein. In a manner not dissimilar the species of 

 animals and plants were begun and survived, while some 

 quickly disappeared, on Darwin's theory ; and there 

 seems on the whole as little room left for a shaping in- 

 telligence (according to our old notions) in the origin of 

 species according to Darwin, or rather Darwinism, as in 

 the origin of the worlds according to Democritus. 



There is only intelligence which results, not previous 

 thought or power which produces it. The first intelli- 

 gence that appears is a faint glimmer that emerges 

 mysteriously a variation that offers itself, of advantage 

 to the creature, but not the effect of superior intelligence 

 outside. A rude sentience first comes by chance, it 

 quickly manifests itself in its shapeless possessor by a 

 blind instinctive groping for food, or by efforts to escape 



* Cicero, De Finibus : " Innumerabiles nmndi, qui et oriantur, et 

 intereant quotidie." 



