1o FOOT-NOTES TO EVOLUTION. 
And so, without affirming or denying these views of 
Agassiz, scientific men have not been satisfied to rest 
with them. 
Admitting that each species has been created, the 
question of method is still pertinent. What is creation? 
How is it performed? What do we 
mean, for example, by “special crea- 
tion’ in opposition to the production of 
species through variations due to natural causes? What 
knowledge have we of the origin of species as distin- 
guished from the birth point of one of the individuals 
of this species? If each of the million species of ani- 
mals and plants which now live, and each of the mil- 
lions of kinds which have become extinct, has been the 
object of a “ special creation,” then “ special creation ” 
is but a name to cover our ignorance of the law by 
which species are produced. What has been done so 
many times must be done in some uniform way. All 
our experience in the universe tells us that everything 
is done in its way and in no other. We no longer pic- 
ture the Creator as forming dogs and horses and men 
out of clay and then breathing into them the breath of 
life. We no longer, with Milton, “imagine” the new 
created lion as pawing the earth “to free his hinder 
parts.” That is not the way we find lions made. The 
lion develops from the unborn lion kitten, and this un- 
born kitten, through heredity typifies its cat-like ances- 
tors. They were cat-like before they became lion-like. 
“All life comes from life,” is a maxim of the early 
naturalists. We understand in some measure the method 
of birth, the method by which individuals 
are created. Why should we think that 
the creation of species, special series of 
individuals, has come about in any way other than this, 
when we know of no other? 
What is special 
creation? 
All life from 
life. 
