Sec. 38. Proposition 5. If the Creator Made the First Animal and the First Plant He Made All Others
If it be admitted that He created the first one, or the first few, animals and plants, why should we doubt that He created all of them? If He began to create them, why should He cease to do so? His works are uniform, continuous and everlasting.
But in his “Origin of Species” (vol. 2, p. 304-305) Darwin says:
“Authors of the highest eminence seem to be fully satisfied with the view that each species has been independently created. To my mind it accords better with what we know of the laws impressed on matter by the Creator, that the production and extinction of the past and present inhabitants of the world should have been due to secondary causes, like those determining the birth and death of the individual.”
What are “the laws impressed on matter by the Creator,” that have anything to do with the reproduction of animals and plants? What laws “impressed on matter” have any bearing on the question whether animals and plants have arisen from inorganic matter, by spontaneous generation or by special creation? Perhaps Darwin means to say that he supposes the Creator would naturally make one or a few primordial forms of animal and plant and turn them loose upon the earth to shift for themselves subject to “secondary causes,” namely, the factors of evolution. But he does not profess to have any special knowledge of the Divine Mind; nor does he pretend to know more of it than any other man does.
Perhaps Lamarck (1744-1829) was the first to suggest the theory of spontaneous generation, in the sense in which these words are now used, and the evolution of species. (Encyclopedia Britannica 14, p. 232.) Down to his time, no one doubted the Mosaic story of the creation. Belief in the theory of special creation was well nigh universal down to the publication of Darwin’s Origin of Species, in 1859. This belief was shared alike by both scientists and laymen. But shortly after the publication of that work, belief in the theory of organic evolution became a fad among educated people; and that belief was supposed to indicate intellectual power and independence of thought.