Then, on a following page, in the same chapter: —
"
To apply all this to our present argument, we would say, with all
reverence, that here, in the works of the third and fifth days, or in
the production of life from the earth, the " unseen things that are
understood," are the created ideas, or types, the divine seminal powers
which are anterior, in time as well as in order of existence, to all
natural or outward manifestation " (p. 230).
"
However progressive and natural the after-production from the earth,the
creation of these seminal types or principles was wholly supernatural,
immediate, divine. We do not hesitate to use here the sublime
expression of Plato ; for we regard it as akin to the thought which
Paul presents, in the Eleventh of Hebrews: " God is the Maker of types (των τύπων'). He
is the architect of ideas;" but not as barren thoughts or speculative
theorems. Along with the law and constitutive of it, there is the
plastic or formative power, the ruling or directing energy. This, there
is no absurdity in saying, was put in the earth to grow; for it means,
that by a new power, then given, the earth was made to bring it/οί'ί/ί
or out, that is, give it birth in outward material form. This was the genesis of the first vegetation " (p. 231).
"
There is a spiritual reality — shall we shrink from using the term ? —
or, at least, an immaterial entity, in all, even the lowest forms of
vegetable as well as animal organization. * * * * Call it law, idea,
power, principle, whatever we may, it is a reality, a high reality, the
highest reality connected with the material organization ; and this it
is which God made before the tree was in the earth," etc. (p. 232.)
Finally, he shows in another chapter how man, as regards his " physical nature," might have
conformed to the development theory of species from species. We cited
his cautious statement in our review. On the next page of the "
Cosmology" (p. 249), he adds: —
" From an old organism, there might thus have been made a new man. On this head, however, the Bible gives us no distinct information. We can merely say, it seems to
imply an immediate formation, even of the material nature, as though
man were altogether a new thing, wholly severed from all physical
connection with any previous states of being; still the language is not
inconsistent with the other supposition. In fact, the mention of earth
as the material from which the body was made, would appear to intimate
some use of a previous nature, together with the laws, the growths, the
affinities, the established on-goings, of such previous nature."
Again,
on page 251, he says, as he has cited in his recent Letter, that the
creation of woman suggests another origin for man's physical nature ;
but he does not use the fact to
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