CREATION BY LAW. 287 



independently of Utility, and therefore of Natural 

 Selection." This admission must be extended to 

 all organic growths. There must have been a time 

 with all of them when they began to be ; and, 

 therefore, a time before Natural Selection had 

 room to play. These considerations, however, only 

 serve to put a higher interpretation on the Theory 

 of Creation by Birth. They do not condemn it. 



One suggestion, indeed, has been made on this 

 subject which I think it is impossible to accept. 

 When men were yet unwilling to admit the exist- 

 ence of life and death upon the globe so long be- 

 fore the creation of Man, it used to be said that 

 fossils were only "sports of nature." So in our 

 own day, I have heard it said that rudimentary 

 organs are merely intended to satisfy that condi- 

 tion of our finite minds, in virtue of which we are 

 unable to conceive Creation, except in connexion 

 with some History and Method of growth. And 

 so, as a condescension to this weakness, aborted 

 members are given to suggest a History which 

 was never true, and a Method which was never fol- 

 lowed ! Now, of one thing we may be sure, that 

 there are no fictions of this kind in Nature, and 



