Now it will at once strike the candid reader, that
even granted the whole of the scheme as stated, there is _nothing_ in it
that has any answer to the objection,--But may I not believe that a wise
Creator conceived and established the whole plan--first creating MATTER
and FORCE, then superadding LIFE at a certain stage, and then drawing
out the type and design according to which everything was to grow and
develop? Is not such a production and such a design the true essence of
Creation? Can all these things happen _without_ such aid? Let us then
look more closely at some of the steps in the evolution just described.
And let us stop at the very beginning--the first term of the series.
We may agree (in the absence of anything leading to a contrary
conclusion) that matter may first have appeared as a cosmic gas, or
incandescent vapour in space. It is probable, if not certain, that our
earth is a mass that has only cooled down on the surface, the centre
being still hot and to some extent, at any rate, molten; and in the sun
we have the case of an enormous globe surrounded with a _photosphere_,
as it is called--a blaze of incandescent substances, which our
spectroscopes tell us are substances such as we have on earth now in
cooled or condensed condition--iron, oxygen, hydrogen, and other such
forms of matter.
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