88 Remarks on the Theories of PT. u. 



essence of which it is quite beyond the power of his 

 faculties to conceive. We know that a stone does 

 not possess life, and we know that the moss which 

 covers it does ; but we cannot explain in what lies 

 the difference: all that we know is, that this 

 difference could not have been imparted to the moss 

 by itself some external influence must have created 

 it. By no conceivable process of reason or imagina- 

 tion can we arrive at the conclusion that Life is 

 inherent in some bodies and not in others, or that it 

 can exist without having been created. But if we 

 come to this conclusion, it appears to me it disproves 

 all Mr. Darwin's theory, because if we admit Creation 

 as a necessary first step, and that such Creation is 

 the act of a Power separate from or superior to the 

 thing created, then it would follow that the thing 

 created would be derived in all its subsequent stages 

 from that Power. It is as great an act of Omnipo- 

 tence to create Life as to form and fashion it after 

 creation. 



Mr. Darwin's first step in his theory of Natural 

 Selection is what he terms the Struggle for Existence 

 arising from the ever-pressing necessity for food 

 acting upon all animated nature. We grant to him 

 the truth of this first proposition. Life, as it exists 



