254 TRANSACTIONS OF THE PLYMOUTH INSTITUTION. 
earliest organism was virtually more than an orphan. The issue 
then lies between Creation and Abiogenesis. In saying this, it 
should be understood that there are two uses of the term Creation. 
One is that which implies a direct act of Eternal Power — the 
Eternal energy acting de novo, and from outside or from within 
the course of Nature, according to the philosophy we hold to. 
The other is that which implies that all the processes of Nature 
are the outcome of Eternal Power — the forms of His energy, so 
that, as Descartes expressed it, the world in its development is an 
act of " Continuous Creation." The issue to which I am now 
referring, in the opinion of many, lies between Creation as a 
direct act and the natural action of pre-existing conditions, which, 
to all except rank materialists, is practically the " Continuous 
Creation " of Descartes. The immediate question is, then, What 
is the evidence adduced for the exclusion of any conceivable 
origin of Life except that it was the outcome of the natural 
action of pre-existing conditions 1 
The first consideration, in the logical order, is that derived from 
the recognition of the Scientific Principle of Continuity. There 
is a common tendency in us all to seek what is termed some 
natural cause for everything we see — some antecedent condition of 
things out of which it arose. The child asks, What does the 
bubble on the water come from ? and when he is informed of the 
natural cause, he marvels and is satisfied. The chemist seeks to 
find the cause of ordinary gas being inflammable ; and when he 
traces the flame to a set of concurring physical antecedents, he 
marvels and is satisfied. This tendency in human nature has been 
the spring of all research, and, in the hands of Science, has issued 
in the formulation of a principle known as that of Continuity ; 
i.e., there is a continuous connection in the antecedents and 
consequents which make up the sum of events in the course of 
things. It is well known that the Principle of Continuity, as 
expounded by Sir William Grove, and recognized in all depart- 
ments of modern science, and sanctioned by the philosophical 
demand for unity, carries with it, when we come face to face with 
any strange event and want to know its genesis, a logical force hard 
to resist. When it is observed in all the natural and physical 
sciences, and also in psychology, that every event, or change in 
the appearance of things, is preceded by some other event, or 
change, or condition of things which stands to it in the relation of 
