Jordan, Science Sketches, pp.

176, 177; also for pithy statement, Laing's Problems of the Future, chap.

vi.
III.

THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES, OF AN EVOLUTION IN ANIMATED NATURE.
We have seen, thus far, how there came into the thinking of mankind upon the visible universe and its inhabitants the idea of a creation virtually instantaneous and complete, and of a Creator in human form with human attributes, who spoke matter into existence literally by the exercise of his throat and lips, or shaped and placed it with his hands and fingers.
We have seen that this view came from far; that it existed in the Chaldaeo-Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, and probably in others of the earliest date known to us; that its main features passed thence into the sacred books of the Hebrews and then into the early Christian Church, by whose theologians it was developed through the Middle Ages and maintained during the modern period.
But, while this idea was thus developed by a succession of noble and thoughtful men through thousands of years, another conception, to all appearance equally ancient, was developed, sometimes in antagonism to it, sometimes mingled with it--the conception of all living beings as wholly or in part the result of a growth process--of an evolution.
This idea, in various forms, became a powerful factor in nearly all the greater ancient theologies and philosophies.

For very widespread among the early peoples who attained to much thinking power was a conception that, in obedience to the divine fiat, a watery chaos produced the earth, and that the sea and land gave birth to their inhabitants.
This is clearly seen in those records of Chaldaeo-Babylonian thought deciphered in these latter years, to which reference has already been made.