50 



Origin and Primal Condition of Man. 



lower forms there exists parthenogenesis, or reproduction 

 by the agency of but a single parent, the mother ; and also 

 fissiparous and gemniparous reproduction. Is it not pos- 

 sible then that among the lowest forms of all animate 

 nature, the organized protoplasm may develop from matter 

 hitherto inert? Is it not probable that such may have 

 been the course of nature since life first began ? The his- 

 tory of the universe is a record of development from the 

 very first. Are we to hold that this development proceeded 

 by virtue of an inherent power implanted in matter at its 

 creation and still immanent, or that the fiat of omnipo- 

 tence has either continually to be exercised or occasionally 

 to be put forth at intervals interfering in the established 

 order of events by creations either continually proceeding, 

 or else occurring at well marked periods only ? Gray, the 

 eminent botanist, in his treatise on Natural Selection not 

 Inconsistent with Natural Theology, remarks : " We may ima- 

 gine that events and operations, in general, go on in virtue 

 simply of forces communicated at the first, and without 

 any subsequent interference, or we may hold that now and 

 then, and only now and then, there is a direct interposition 

 of the Deity ; or, lastly, we may suppose that all the changes 

 are carried on by the immediate, orderly and constant, 

 however infinitely diversified action of the intelligent, ef- 

 ficient cause." The drift of scientific opinion, both in Europe 

 and America, is setting strongly in favor of creation by 

 some form of evolution of species, and against any theory 

 of creation by direct divine interference, except as the latter 

 is constantly and steadily exercised in the regular harmo- 

 nious movement of the universe and all things in it. Such 

 is now the unanimous opinion of the professors at Yale, 

 including Dana, as one of the faculty there assures me, and 

 this is the more remarkable for the fact, that Professor Dana 

 long maintained a very different theory. This does not re- 

 quire, however, an acceptance of Darwin's theory of variation 



