ims to possess a
vast amount of very positive knowledge. Speculative hypothesis never
employed the language of dogmatic assurance so confidently as now. Even
theosophic occultism speaks of itself as "science."

That which strikes one first of all in the history of philosophy is the
similarity between ancient and modern speculations upon the great
mysteries of the world.

1. Notice with what accord various earlier and later theories dispense
with real and personal creatorship in the origin of the universe. The
atomic theory of creation is by no means a modern invention, and so far
as evolution is connected with that hypothesis, evolution is very old.
Mr. Herbert Spencer states his theory thus: "First in the order of
evolution is the formation of simple mechanical aggregates of atoms,
e.g., molecules, spheres, systems; then the evolution of more complex
aggregations or organisms: then the evolution of the highest product of
organization, thought; and lastly, the evolution of the complex
relations which exist between thinking organisms, or society with its
regulative laws, both civil and moral." Between these stages, he tells
us, "there is no fixed line of demarcation.... The passage from one to
the other is continuous, the transition from organization to thought
being mediated by the nerve-system, in the molecular changes of which
are to be found the mechanical correlates and equivalents of all
conscious processes." It will be seen that this comprehensive statement
is designed to cover, if not the creation, at least the creative
processes of all things in the universe of matter and in the universe of
thought.

Mr. Spencer does not allude here to the question of a First Cause back
of the molecules and their movements, though he is generally understood
to admit that such a Cause may exist. He does not in express terms deny
that at some stage in this development there may have been introduced a
divine spark of immortal life direct from the Creator's hand. He even
maintains that "the conscious soul is not the product of a collocation
of material particles, but is in the deepest sense a Divine
effluence."[184] Yet he seems to get on without any very necessary
reliance upon such an intervention, since the development from the atom
to the civilized man is "a continuous process," and throughout the whole
course from molecule to thought and moral and social law, "there are no
lines of demarcation." He leaves it for the believer