58 
gony long current among ourselves,, it is assumed tliat the 
genesis of the heavens and the earth is effected somewhat 
after the manner in which a workman shapes a piece of furni- 
ture^ (p. 85). As holding the belief of a Christian I must 
protest against this statement as unfair. No assumption 
whatever is made by those who receive “the cosmogony long 
current among ourselves/' 5 viz., the account contained in the 
Book of Genesis, with respect to the manner in which the 
universe was called into existence. And if they did make 
any such assumption it certainly would not be the one specified 
by Mr. Spencer in this passage. Their belief is that Creation 
took place in a manner which, whatever it may have been (for 
this they do not profess to know), was at any rate totally 
unlike that in which a workman shapes a piece of furniture. 
I cannot, in exposing the unfairness of such a representation 
of the belief of Christians, use clearer language than that of 
Mr. Spencer himself, who writes thus in the very next page 
with respect to it : — “ Though it is true that the proceedings 
of a human artificer may vaguely symbolize to us a method 
after which the universe might be shaped, yet they do not 
help us to comprehend the real mystery, namely, the origin of 
the material of which the universe consists. The artisan does 
not make the iron, wood, or stone he uses, but merely fashions 
and combines them The production of matter out of 
nothing is the real mystery, which neither this simile nor any 
other enables us to conceive ; and a simile which does not 
enable us to conceive this may just as well be dispensed with. - ” 
True, it may as well, nay, ought to be dispensed with. Only 
instead of believers in “ the current cosmogony 3i being called 
on to dispense with it, it is they who are entitled to call on 
their opponents to dispense with it as representing their 
belief. The simile has been used not by believers, but by 
their antagonists, in order to turn the doctrine of Creation 
into ridicule, and on the part of believers I would take this 
opportunity of distinctly repudiating it. I do not mean to 
accuse Mr. Spencer of intentional unfairness. He may not 
have been the original inventor of the simile of the human 
artificer. It has served Dr. Tyndall also more than once as a 
weapon of attack upon the Christian religion, especially in his 
Belfast Address. But with whomsoever it may have originated, 
Mr. Spencer’s own remarks, just quoted, ought to have 
saved him from so misrepresenting the Christian 'doctrine of 
Creation. 
21. After the little prelude which we have had under con- 
sideration, Mr. Spencer proceeds to something which looks 
more like an argument, although I hope to make it appear that 
