THE PROBLEM STATED. 3 



not from any inherent error they were believed to contain, but simply 

 because they ran in direct opposition to the older and more primitive 

 conceptions of the origin of species which, formulated in creeds, and 

 elaborated from pulpits, had come to be received as an article of 

 unquestioning faith by cultured and uncultured alike. Two theories, 

 and only two, concerning the origin of animals and plants, present 

 themselves for examination and acceptation by the human intellect. 

 Of these two theories, one dates from a pre- scientific period, when this 

 earth was believed to be the centre of the universe, when this world 

 was believed to possess a round and flattened surface, and when the 

 sky was believed to be a solid roof environing the earth above, and 

 constituting at the same time the floor of an upper and celestial 

 sphere. Such rude ideas of cosmogony and astronomy were fully 

 paralleled by as primitive a biological system. The various species 

 of animals and plants were believed, according to the Mosaic 

 cosmogony, to have originated each as a complete and "special 

 creation." As man was conceived to have been formed of the 

 dust of the earth, and as all the intricacies and complexities, struc- 

 tural, physical, and chemical, of the human organism were believed 

 to have been set in action at once and perfectly, through the opera- 

 tion of a mysterious, supernatural fiat; so the varied species of 

 animals and plants, from the monad to the elephant, from the plant- 

 specks in the pool to the giant pine or lordly oak, were similarly 

 held to have originated each as a " special creation." In this way a 

 creative interference, capable of originating living beings ex nihilo^ 

 and therefore capable of literally creating matter itself an incon- 

 ceivable act was credited on the first theory, as it may still be 

 credited in creed and dogma, with the production of the entire 

 universe of living things. 



The. genesis and development of such a theory has naturally 

 been laid stress upon by most writers who have criticised, from an 

 a priori point of view^the worthiness and acceptation of itself and its 

 opponent hypothesis. ' The fact that the " special creation " theory 

 was framed in an age when primitive ideas and mythologies, now 

 completely consigned to the limbo reserved for exploded myths, 

 constituted the philosophy of mankind, naturally militates against 

 the truth and probability of the hypothesis in question. Being a 

 primitive imagining, it would, according to Mr. Spencer's view, be 

 most likely a wrong and untrue one. " If the interpretations of 

 nature given by aboriginal men were erroneous in other directions," 

 says that author, " they were most likely erroneous in this direction. 

 It would be strange if, whilst these aboriginal men failed to reach 

 the truth in so many cases where it is comparatively conspicuous, 

 they yet reached the truth in a case where it is comparatively 

 hidden." As we have to-day rejected the astronomy of the 



B 2 



