CREATION BY LAW. 281 



often speak as if Creation were not Creation, unless 

 it works from nothing as its material, and by no- 

 thing as its means. We know that out of the 

 " dust of the ground," that is, out of the ordinary- 

 elements of Nature, are our own bodies formed, 

 and the bodies of all living things. Nor is there 

 anything which should shock us in the idea that 

 the creation of new Forms, any more than their 

 propagation, has been brought about by the use 

 and instrumentality of means. In a theological 

 point of view it matters nothing what those means 

 have been. I agree with Mons. Guizot when he 

 says that " Those only would be serious adversaries 

 of the doctrine of Creation who could affirm that 

 the universe — the earth and Man upon it — have 

 been from all eternity, and in all respects, just 

 what they are now." * But this cannot be affirmed 

 except in the teeth of facts which Science has 

 clearly ascertained. There has been a continual 

 coming-to-be of new Forms of Life.f This is 



* Meditations sur l'Essence cle la Religion Chretienne, p. 49. 



f "We discern no evidence of a pause or intromission in the 

 creation or coming-to-be of new plants and animals." — Instances of 

 the Power of God as manifested in His Animal Creation, by Pro- 

 fessor Owen. 



