50 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



he suspended the possible existence of life upon seo 

 ondary agencies which have acted for at least a hun- 

 dred million years* upon the earth, but which in all 

 that time have been able to produce and propagate 

 the primordial protoplasm only once. It was indeed 

 fortunate that the one and only possible card of for- 

 tune in the lottery of infinite impossibilities was 

 drawn so early in the geological history of the earth, 

 so that there would be an abundance of time while 

 the sun retained its light and heat to evolve the count- 

 less species of living beings, the highest of which 

 culminated in man. It is a significant fact in the 

 existence of living beings that they appeared so early 

 in the history of the earth. 



From the dead, unconscious matter that we tread 

 beneath our feet, we may, according to the theory of 

 evolution, ascend by secondary agencies alone, by vir- 

 tue of "the laws impressed on matter by the Cre- 

 ator," as Darwin has expressed it, through spontan- 

 eous generation, on and on, through an infinite num- 

 ber of organic forms till we reach the mind of man, 

 which is the pinnacle of evolution. 



I need not say that Darwin in " The Origin of 

 Species," has given to the world most of the facts' 

 and arguments that have been urged for and against 

 the theory of organic evolution. Perhaps no other 

 scientific book has ever done so much in so short a 

 time to turn human thought aside into a new channel. 



Before proceeding to consider the facts which bear 

 upon the theory of the evolution of organic forms, I 

 will present the possible Theistic theories according 

 to which new organic forms may have been brought 

 into existence. 



First, the Creator may have created each species by 



* The Interpretation of Nature, by N. S. Shaler, p, 122. 



