SOME OBJECTIONS TO THE EVOLUTION THEORY. 589 



of Px'oviclence it substituted mechanical force, and thus the reign of Law, 

 that great essential to the theory of Evolution, was solidly established."' 

 Speaking of the various stages of embryonic life, from the simple cell to the 

 fully developed individual, he says, "common sense revolts against the idea 

 that these transformations are in the individual due to divine intervention. 

 in that, as in the case of the earth, they must be due to natural law." 

 Again, he says, "Nature never selects, never accepts or rejects ; knows noth- 

 ing about duties, nothing about fitness or unfitness. Nature simjDly obeys 

 laws." Again when speaking of the genealogy of organisms, he says, " the 

 dominion of law is everywhere manifest. The capricious intrusion of a. 

 supernatural agency has never yet occurred." And yet after all this appa- 

 rent exclusion of a creator, we are asked to believe that the eff'ect of the 

 Evolution theory upon us is to make our "conceptions of the unchangeable 

 purposes, the awful majesty of the Supreme being more vivid." This may 

 be plain to philosophic scientists, but not to the ordinary reader. 



Now, in brief reply to Draper, those who oppose the Evolution theory 

 ask why is creation necessarily '■^sudden f Upon referring to the first 

 chapter of Genesis we find the word "create" applied to onlj^ three acts. 

 namely : The creation of the Heavens and the earth, the creation of great 

 whales, and the creation of man in the image of his maker. In all other 

 acts the subordinate words "form," "make" and "build" are used. Now is 

 there anything which necessarily implies suddenness of action in the words 

 " In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth ?" Who can tell 

 how long a period the expression "in the beginning" covers? No theolo- 

 gian of the present day undertakes for a moment to establish as a fact that 

 that the act of creating the Heavens and the earth was instantaneous, but 

 simply that it was clearly and purely an act of creation, and not of forming 

 or making or building up from materials already created. The word defined 

 "create," according to Bishop Ely, one of the most eminent of Hebrew schol- 

 lars, is "evidently the common word for a true and original creation, and 

 there is no other word in Hebrew which can express that thought." 



Who asserts, as Mr. Draper assumes, that "Almighty God called into 

 sudden existence the different types of life that we see?" No theoloo-ian 

 that we know of claims either suddenness of call into existence or that all 

 the different types of life that we see were called into existence at the same 

 time, but simply that God created them in his own time, at such periods as- 

 he thought proper and wisest, and under such laws as he in his infinite 

 wisdom established. 



Further, we claim that the whole theory of Evolution depends at last 

 upon the creative power of God, because even Darwin had to start with one 

 or more organisms which were already created, and evolved all the rest from 

 them, while the most earnest advocates of spontaneous generation have so 

 far absolutely failed to satisfy even such willing, but fair-minded, atheista 

 as Tyndall, that any living organism can be produced spontaneously. 



The attributing of the succession of life and the development of species 

 continuously from the simpler to the more complex forms, from the proto- 



