18 ORGANIC EVOLUTION 



tinuity. This vastest of generalisations teaches that 

 all phenomena are inter-related ; that the present 

 is the child of the past, the parent of the future ; 

 that law rules all ; that, if there be a personal Deity, 

 He never finds cause to interfere with His own laws. 

 If the special creation theory were true, this principle 

 must be false. . . . The reader who demands some- 

 thing more tangible is besought to contain himself 

 for but a few lines more. 



Secondly, there is that vast generalisation of Uni- 

 versal and Ordered Change which Herbert Spencer 

 discovered and named Evolution. He proved that 

 stars and societies and ideas are subject to this law. 

 The physics of to-day has proved that what is true 

 of species of societies is also true of species of atoms, 

 species which we are only just learning not to call 

 elements. It is more than improbable that the 

 principle which applies elsewhere without exception 

 should not apply to species of animals and plants. 



In the next place, there is the evidence of many 

 sciences. We may begin with astronomy, since it is 

 well to hold, as far as possible, to the chronological 

 order. 



Some form or other of the nebular theory of the 

 origin of the solar system is now accepted by all astro- 

 nomers. According to this theory, there was a time 

 when the surface of the earth, ere the birth of the 

 moon, was fluid, whilst all the water of the planet was 

 suspended in gaseous form in its atmosphere. In these 

 conditions life was impossible. That they did once 

 prevail, geology, also, with its knowledge of igneous 

 formations, bears witness. Thus not only have 

 different species of living things been evolved ; but 



