out the type and design according to which everything was to grow and
develop? Is not such a production and such a design the true essence of
Creation? Can all these things happen _without_ such aid? Let us then
look more closely at some of the steps in the evolution just described.
And let us stop at the very beginning--the first term of the series.

We may agree (in the absence of anything leading to a contrary
conclusion) that matter may first have appeared as a cosmic gas, or
incandescent vapour in space. It is probable, if not certain, that our
earth is a mass that has only cooled down on the surface, the centre
being still hot and to some extent, at any rate, molten; and in the sun
we have the case of an enormous globe surrounded with a _photosphere_,
as it is called--a blaze of incandescent substances, which our
spectroscopes tell us are substances such as we have on earth now in
cooled or condensed condition--iron, oxygen, hydrogen, and other such
forms of matter.

First of all, how did any _substance_, however vapoury and tenuous, come
to exist, when previously there was nothing?

If we admit, that there was a time when even cosmic gas did not exist,
then there must have been _an Agent_, whose _fiat_ caused the change.
And as that Agent does not obviously belong to the material order, it
must belong to the spiritual or non-material; for the two orders
together exhaust the possibilities of existence. If, however, it is
urged that "primal matter"--cosmic vapour--containing the "potentiality"
of all existence, is eternal and alway existed of itself, then we are
brought face to face with innumerable difficulties. In the first place,
the existence of matter is not the only difficulty to be got over; not
the only dead-lock along the line. We pass it over and go on for a