[Footnote 1: At present it is an ascertained fact that certain chemical substances are elements incapable of further resolution. But there are not wanting indications which would make it a matter of no surprise at all, if we were to learn to-morrow that the so-called element had been resolved. Such a fact is an example of what is stated in the text; and a belief based on the absolute and unchangeable stability of such a fact would not be unassailable. But none of the above stated instances of "dead-lock" in evolution are within "measurable distance" of being resolved.] CHAPTER II. _THE ELEMENT OF FAITH IN CREATION._ In the extract placed on the title-page, the author of the Epistle clearly places our conclusion that God "established the order of creation"--the lines, plans, developmental-sequences, aims, and objects, that the course of creation has hitherto pursued and is still ceaselessly pursuing,[1] in the category of _faith_. Of course, from one point of view--very probably that of the writer of the Epistle--this conclusion is argued by the consideration that the human mind forms no distinct conception of the formation of solid--or any other form of--matter _in vacuo_, where nothing previously existed. And what the mind does not find within its own power, but what yet _is true_ in the larger spiritual kingdom beyond itself, is apprehended by the spiritual faculty of _faith_. [Footnote 1: [Greek: Kataertisthai tous aionas]. This implies more than the mere originating or supplying of a number of material, organic, or inorganic (or even spiritual) forms and existences. Whatever may be the precise translation of [Greek: aion], it implies a chain of events, the cause and effect, the type and the plan, and its evolution all included.] But from another point of view, the immediate action of faith is not so evident. If, it might be said, the law of evolution, or the law of creation, or whatever is the true law, is, in all its bearings, a matter to be observed and discovered by human science, then it is not easy to see how there is any exercise of faith. We should be more properly said to _know_, by intellectual processes of observation, inference, and conclusion, that there was a Law Giver, an Artificer, and a First Cause, so unlimited in power and capacity by the conditions of the case, that we must call Him "Divine." And many will probably feel that their just reasoning on the subject leads them to knowledge--knowledge, i.e., as approximately certain as anything in this world can be.