58 ORGANIC EVOLUTION CONSIDERED 



As long as there is no necessary break in this method 

 it must be exclusively accepted. 



But the break in the chain of ordinary method 

 when we come to the first living organism is abrupt — 

 it is a great gulf reaching from the dead to the liv- 

 ing. There is no greater chasm in nature than that 

 between dead matter and a living being, unless it is 

 that between mind on the one hand and matter and 

 force on the other. 



It is a gulf which science cannot bridge. We have 

 not even the aid of analogy when we try to explain the 

 origin of the first living being. The parents, accord- 

 ing to the theory of abiogenesis, are inorganic matter 

 and the forces of nature, and these are not analogous 

 to a living parent. 



Some evolutionists speak lightly of the " special- 

 act " theory of creation. The beginning of life on 

 the earth involved a special act of some kind. 

 Whether the Creator worked directly or indirectly, 

 the act of creation was no less special. If the first 

 living being was brought into existence by the Crea- 

 tor through the exercise of secondary agencies, it re- 

 quired a special directing of these agencies to produce 

 the result, and this is all that the Theist needs to 

 mean by the word miracle. We are driven to assume 

 a special act of the Creator by the break in the 

 method of producing new organic beings by ordinary 

 generation, and by the failure of the theory of spon- 

 taneous generation. I will now proceed to briefly 

 examine this theory. 



Let us get clearly before us the nature of the prob- 

 lem to be solved. Every living being, whether plant 

 or animal, must have as constituent parts of its body 

 at least four elements, namely, carbon, hydrogen, 

 oxygen and nitrogen. These four elements, either 

 free or in combination, or both, exist abundantly in 



