348 THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 
appears to us as a simple and necessary event in the pro- 
cess of the development of the earth, We admit that this 
process, as long as it is not directly observed or repeated by 
experiment, remains a pure hypothesis. But I must again 
say that this hypothesis is indispensable for the consistent 
completion of the non-miraculous history of creation, that 
it has absolutely nothing forced or miraculous about it, 
and that certainly it can never be positively refuted. It 
must be taken into consideration that the process of spon- 
taneous generation, even if it still took place daily and 
hourly, would in any case be exceedingly difficult to observe 
and establish with absolute certainty as such. With regard 
to the Monera, we find ourselves placed before the following 
alternative : either they are actually directly derived from 
pre-existing, or “ created,” most ancient Monera, and in this 
case they would have had to propagate themselves un- 
changed for many millions of years, and to have maintained 
their original form of simple particles of plasma ; or, the 
present Monera have originated much later in the course of 
the organic history of the earth, by repeated acts of spon- 
taneous generation, and in this case spontaneous generation 
may take place now as well as then. The latter suppo- 
sition has evidently much more probability on its side than 
the former. 
If we do not accept the hypothesis of spontaneous 
generation, then at this one point of the history of develop- 
ment we must have recourse to the miracle of a swper- 
natural creation. The Creator must have created the first 
organism, or a few first organisms, from which all others are 
derived, and as such he must have created the simplest 
Monera, or primeeval cytods, and given them the capability 
