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CREATION
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all such materialism as this. Those, however, who framed these definitions of matter were but partial students. They were not biologists, but mathematicians, whose labour referred only to such accidents and properties of matter as could be expressed in their formulæ. Their science was mechanical science, not the science of life. With matter in its wholeness they never dealt; and, denuded by their imperfect definition, the gentle mother of all' became the object of her children's dread. Let us reverently, but honestly, look the question in the face. Divorced from matter, where is life? Whatever our faith may say, our knowledge shows them to be indissolubly joined. Every meal we eat and every cup we drink, illustrates the mysterious control of the mind by Matter."* . .
The fact, however, is that life and matter are two entirely different substances, each possessing separate and specific attributes of its own and performing functions which the other is incapable of discharging by nature. We may look into the process of the formation of the organic eye to judge the merit of the scientist's notion of evolution. Haeckel sums up the scientific conclusions on this point, in his usually terse style, as follows:
" (1) At the lowest stage of organization the whole psychoplasm, as such, is sensitive, and reacts on the stimuli from without, that is the case with the lowest protists, with many plants, and with some of the most rudimentary animals,
“(2) At the second stage, very simple and undiscriminating sense organs begin to appear on the surface of the organism, in the form of the protoplasmic filaments and pigment spots, the forerunners of the nerves of touch and the eyes; these are found in some of the higher protists and in many of the lower animals and plants.
" (3) At the third stage specific organs of sense, each with a peculiar adaptation, have arisen by differentiation out of these rudimentary processes : these are the chemical instruments of smell and taste and the physical organs of touch, temperature, hearing and sight. The specific energy of these sense organs is not an original inherent property, but has been gained by functional adaptation and progressive heredity.
* Fragments of Science,' Vol. II.
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