GENESIS, GEOLOGY, AND EVOLUTION. 327 



tively created at the beginning of the world ! Here, then, we have 

 a practical basis of argument to account for the many transitional 

 forms which geology reveals in the past history of the world, as well 

 as among the plants and animals living at the present day. 



Yet another fact may be mentioned. Geographical botany and 

 zoology began to be studied as travellers stocked our museums and 

 herbaria with an ever-increasing number of beings brought from 

 all parts of the world ; and the (so to say) capricious distribution of 

 identical forms in far-distant places — now explicable on the theory of 

 migration and subsequent isolation — as well as the appearance of rep- 

 resentative forms of allied though different kinds in certain districts, 

 explicable only on the theory of descent with modification, has a 

 strong prima-facie appearance against the theory of individual crea- 

 tions, even if geology did not furnish undoubted evidence of very fre- 

 quent interchanges between land and sea having taken place. With- 

 out at present giving more reasons, the above will be sufficient to show 

 cause why Science has found herself compelled to secede from the 

 cramping toils of the creative hypothesis, and to take up that of the 

 evolution of living things as better explaining all the foregoing 

 phenomena. In proportion as the probability of the former was seen 

 to decrease, so in the same degree does that of evolution increase. 

 Hence, at the present day the argument in favor of develojDment of 

 species by natural laws may be stated in the following terms, viz. : " It 

 is infinitely more probable that all living and extinct beings have been 

 developed or evolved by natural laws of generation from preexisting 

 forms, than that they with all their innumerable races and varieties 

 should owe their existences severally to creative fiats." 



But, even now, asks the theologian, Does not this theory contro- 

 vert the Bible, for we are distinctly told that God created every thing 

 after its kind ? 



In reply, it may be confidently shown that the theologian cannot 

 be sure of the value of his interpretation of the first chapter of Gene- 

 sis, at least so far as he attempts to draw scientific deductions from it. 

 Thus it may be observed to him that the words " create " and " make " 

 are used indifferently ; that no definition is given to insure accuracy as 

 to their right interpretation. It is not stated whether God created 

 out of nothing or out of eternally or at least preexisting matter. 

 Moreover, in addition to the statement that God created or made all 

 things, there is the oft-repeated assertion embodied in the word fiat y 

 but apparently overlooked, that He enjoined the earth and the waters 

 to bring forth living forms. What does this expression imply ? 



The use of the imperative mood can only signify an agent other 

 than the speaker. If, therefore, it be maintained that the sentence 

 (ver. 21) " God created every living thing that moveth" signifies He 

 made them by his direct Almighty fiat, it may be equally maintained 

 that the sentence " Let the waters bring forth abundantly every mov- 



