Creation or Evolution? A Philosophical Inquiry

by George Ticknor Curtis

[CONTENTS.]

	[CHAPTER I].
		PAGE
	Nature and importance of the subject—Is there a relation of Creatorand creature between God and man?—Rules of rational belief—Isnatural theology a progressive science?	1
	[CHAPTER II].
	The Platonic Kosmos compared with the Darwinian theory of evolution	44
	[CHAPTER III].
	The Darwinian pedigree of man—The evolution of organisms out ofother organisms, according to the theory of Darwin	87
	[CHAPTER IV].
	The doctrine of evolution according to Herbert Spencer	131
	[CHAPTER V].
	The doctrine of evolution according to Herbert Spencer further considered	167
	[CHAPTER VI].
	The doctrine of evolution according to Herbert Spencer further considered	200
	[CHAPTER VII].
	Mr. Spencer's agnosticism—His theory of the origin of religious beliefs—Themode in which mankind are to lose the consciousness of apersonal God	257
	[CHAPTER VIII].
	The existence, attributes, and methods of God deducible from the phenomenaof Nature—Origin of the solar system	300
	[CHAPTER IX].
	Does evolution account for the phenomena of society and of nature?—Necessityfor a conception of a personal actor—Mr. Spencer'sprotoplasmic origin of all organic life—The Mosaic account ofcreation treated as a hypothesis which may be scientifically contrastedwith evolution	334
	[CHAPTER X].
	"Species," "races," and "varieties"—Sexual division—Causation	372
	[CHAPTER XI].
	Origin of the human mind—Mr. Spencer's theory of the compositionof mind—His system of morality	394
	[CHAPTER XII].
	Mr. Spencer's philosophy as a whole—His psychology, and his systemof ethics—The sacred origin of moral injunctions, and the secularizationof morals	434
	[CHAPTER XIII].
	Sophereus discourses on the nature and origin of the human mind	467
	[Glossary]	547
	[Index]	557

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CREATION OR EVOLUTION?

[CHAPTER I.]

Nature and importance of the subject—Is there a relation of Creator and creature between God and man?—Rules of rational belief—Is natural theology a progressive science?

Man finds himself in the universe a conscious and thinking being. He has to account to himself for his own existence. He is impelled to this by an irresistible propensity, which is constantly leading him to look both inward and outward for an answer to the questions: What am I? How came I to be? What is the limit of my existence? Is there any other being in the universe between whom and myself there exists the relation of Creator and creature?

The whole history of the human mind, so far as we have any reliable history, is marked by this perpetual effort to find a First Cause.