Page:The Philosophy of Creation.djvu/308

 yet form living things of a very low degree of life. This is spontaneous creation.

If the chemist is able to produce living forms in sterilized gelatine, or by other methods, it should meet with no surprise. The influx of creative power that flows down and terminates in gross matter, and whose endeavor produces moss in crystals, plant forms on the window, and the like, is everyrwhere constant and active. If the chemist can produce matter of a suitable character to respond to that creative force, it must clothe itself in as high a form of life as the conditions will permit. The fact does not indicate that creative power is inherent in matter. It proves the presence and activity of creative power in ultimates and the fact of spontaneous generation. But beyond providing the conditions for the manifestation of the omnipresent creative force, the scientist can never go. The end is the endeavor to produce uses; the cause is the law of endeavor's action, and the effect is the result. End, cause, and effect as three discrete degrees are actually present in every single thing by virtue of its form; hence every thing retains in itself an endeavor to produce uses. An interesting field of experimentation is open to the chemist to ascertain what, under favorable conditions, this endeavor will produce.