THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
CHAPTER I. 
NATURE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE DOCTRINE OF 
FILIATION, OR DESCENT-THEORY. 
General Importance and Essential Nature of the Theory of Descent as re- 
formed by Darwin.—Its Special Importance to Biology (Zoology and 
Botany).—Its Special Importance to the History of the Natural Develop- 
ment of the Human Race.—The Theory of Descent as the Non-Miraculous 
History of Creation.—Idea of Creation—Knowledge and Belief.—His- 
tory of Creation and History of Development.—The Connection between. 
the History of Individual and Paleontological Development.—The 
Theory of Purposelessness, or the Science of Rudimentary Organs.— 
Useless and Superfluous Arrangements in Organisms.—Contrast between 
the two entirely opposed Views of Nature: the Monistic (mechanical, 
causal) and the Dualistic (teleological, vital).—Proof of the former by 
the Theory of Descent.—Unity of Organic and Inorganic Nature, and 
the Identity of the Active Causes in both.—The Importance of the 
Theory of Descent to the Monistic Conception of all Nature. 
THE intellectual movement to which the impulse was given, 
thirteen years ago, by the English naturalist, Charles 
Darwin, in his celebrated work, “On the Origin of 
Species,’ has, within this short period, assumed dimen- 
sions which cannot but excite the most universal interest. It 
is true the scientific theory set forth in that work, which is 
commonly called briefly Darwinism, is only a small fragment 
of a far more comprehensive doctrine—a part of the universal 
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