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argument, we admit the theory of spontaneous generation, we have no 
absolute ground upon which we can set our foot. Before anything can be 
generated we must have had these atoms of matter ; but whence do 
these atoms come ? How can you explain the coalescence of these atoms 
in the case of the immense orbs that circulate around the sun ? How do you 
explain the laws of gravitation which hold them together — laws which it 
required a Newton and a Kepler to discover. How the initial force which 
still keeps them in their orbits, and prevents them gravitating pell-mell to 
the centre ? These atoms of matter could not have impressed the laws of 
gravitation upon themselves ; they could not direct the course of the 
planets round the sun. All this must have come from an external 
source; therefore, the origin of matter and all the great problems of 
astronomy are unaccounted for by the theory of evolution, and exist 
independently of the theory of spontaneous generation. The only 
explanation Dr. Haeckel offers is that matter began to differentiate. 
To differentiate is to produce a difference, according to the ordinary use of 
language; but, as Dr. Whewell has well asked in his History of Inductive 
Science, “ What principles produced these differences There must have 
been some active principle at work, otherwise these differences could not exist. 
And if matter were able to differentiate at so early a period, why does it not 
continue to differentiate now ? Why do we not see molluscs developing 
themselves into men ? Why are we not able to observe the process by which 
one species of animal changes itself into some other species ? This is a 
very reasonable question, and one that should have an answer. If matter 
can differentiate itself at one particular epoch in the world’s existence, 
why does it not do so at the present time? and why, also, do we not 
see those intermediate changes which are so readily assumed, but of 
which we have no evidence whatever ? It is to be remembered that there 
are only a few philosophers — so called— who take the view advocated 
by Dr. Haeckel. The greatest physiologists of the present day are 
against it. Not only was Dr. Whewell opposed to it, but “ he considered it 
unnecessary to point out how extremely arbitrary every part of this scheme 
is, and how complex the machinery would be even if it did account for the 
facts ; that it is sufficient to observe, as others have done, that the capacity 
of change and of being, influenced by external circumstances such as we 
really find in nature, and such as in science we must represent it, is a 
tendency not to improve but to deteriorate ” ; * and we also find men of 
such high repute as Dr. Carpenter, Kegistrar of the University of London, 
and one of the leading physiologists of the present day, laying down, as an 
axiom, that all the ultimate facts of creation which we cannot explain, and 
which we must admit, involve the idea of creation by some external power. 
“ All sciences have their ultimate facts for which no other cause can be 
assigned than the will of the Creator ; and that of the existence of the 
* History of Inductive Sciences, iii., p. 628 . 
