on primary and fundamental intuitions, are especially and par excellence scientific.
Such are some of the objections to the Christian conception of God. We may now turn to those which are directed against God as the Creator, i.e. as the absolute originator of the universe, without the employment of any pre-existing means or material. This is again considered by Mr. Spencer as a thoroughly illegitimate symbolic conception, as much so as the atheistic one—the difficulty as to a self-existent Creator being in his opinion equal to that of a self-existent universe. To this it may be replied that both are of course equally unimaginable, but that it is not a question of facility of conception—not which is easiest to conceive, but which best accounts for, and accords with, psychological facts; namely, with the above-mentioned intuitions. It is contended that we have these primary intuitions, and that with these the conception of a self-existent Creator is perfectly harmonious. On the other hand, the notion of a self-existent universe—that there is no real distinction between the finite and the infinite—that the universe and ourselves are one and the same things with the infinite and the self-existent; these assertions, in addition to being unimaginable, contradict our primary intuitions.
Mr. Darwin's objections to "Creation" are of quite a different kind, and, before entering upon them, it will be well to endeavour clearly to understand what we mean by "Creation," in the various senses in which the term may be used.
In the strictest and highest sense "Creation" is the absolute origination of anything by God without pre-existing means or material, and is a supernatural act.[[257]]
In the secondary and lower sense, "Creation" is the formation of anything by God derivatively; that is, that the preceding matter has been created with the potentiality to evolve from it,
under suitable conditions, all the various forms it subsequently assumes. And this power having been conferred by God in the first instance, and those laws and powers having been instituted by Him, through the action of which the suitable conditions are supplied, He is said in this lower sense to create such various subsequent forms. This is the natural action of God in the physical world, as distinguished from His direct, or, as it may be here called, supernatural action.
In yet a third sense, the word "Creation" may be more or less improperly applied to the construction of any complex formation or state by a voluntary self-conscious being who makes use of the powers and laws which God has imposed, as when a man is spoken of as the creator of a museum, or of "his own fortune," &c. Such action of a created conscious intelligence is purely natural, but more than physical, and may be conveniently spoken of as hyperphysical.
We have thus (1) direct or supernatural action; (2) physical action; and (3) hyperphysical action—-the two latter both belonging to the order of nature.[[258]] Neither the physical nor the hyperphysical actions, however, exclude the idea of the Divine concurrence, and with every consistent theist that idea is necessarily included. Dr. Asa Gray has given expression to this.[[259]] He says, "Agreeing that plants and animals were produced by Omnipotent fiat, does not exclude the idea of natural order and what we call secondary causes. The record of the fiat—'Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed,' &c., 'let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind'—seems even to imply them," and leads to the conclusion that the various kinds were produced through natural agencies.
Now, much confusion has arisen from not keeping clearly in view this distinction between absolute creation and derivative creation. With the first, physical science has plainly nothing whatever to do, and is impotent to prove or to refute it. The second is also safe from any attack on the part of physical science, for it is primarily derived from psychical not physical phenomena. The greater part of the apparent force possessed by objectors to creation, like Mr. Darwin, lies in their treating the assertion of derivative creation as if it was an assertion of absolute creation, or at least of supernatural action. Thus, he asks whether some of his opponents believe "that at innumerable periods in the earth's history, certain elemental atoms have been commanded suddenly to flash into living tissues."[[260]] Certain of Mr. Darwin's objections, however, are not physical, but metaphysical, and really attack the dogma of secondary or derivative creation, though to some perhaps they may appear to be directed against absolute creation only.