which they root themselves in the human system, and made prolific in an almost incredible degree. They produce great suffering, sometimes cause insanity, and not infrequently death.[64] The dilemma that is supposed to be created by these facts for those who believe in the doctrine of special creations is this: If any animals are special creations, all are so; and each animal must be supposed to have been created for the special purposes that are apparent upon an examination of its structure and mode of life. As the superior are constantly preying upon the inferior, and as there are numerous inferior animals that are constantly inflicting evil upon the superior, it results that malevolence rather than benevolence was a characteristic attribute of the creating power, or else that the power which is supposed to have created was unable to make the perfect creation which the hypothesis of infinite benevolence calls for. Infinite goodness fails to be demonstrated by a world that is full of misery, caused by special appliances to bring it about; and infinite power can not have existed, unless it comprehended the power to produce perfect and universal happiness. I pass entirely aside from the argument which is drawn from the supposed manifestations of Almighty power in the creation of diversified forms of animal and vegetable life, because that argument leads doubtless to the inquiry whether the Almighty made these manifestations to demonstrate his power to himself, or made them to demonstrate it to his human creatures. Admitting the fact, as Mr. Spencer puts it, that millions of these demonstrations took place on earth when there were no intelligent beings to contemplate them--a statement that is said to be verified by the deductions of geology and paleontology--an inquiry into the period or the purpose of these manifestations of divine power as manifestations only, merely leads us into some of the arguments of the current theology. There is another realm of thought and reasoning into which it will be far more profitable to enter. It is that realm which lies outside of tradition and the teachings of theologians, and which takes the hypothesis of infinite power and infinite goodness, not as something which we have been taught to believe, but as a postulate of philosophical reasoning; and, applying this hypothesis to the known facts of the animal and vegetable world, endeavors to ascertain whether these facts necessarily create an insuperable difficulty in the hypothesis which lies at the basis of all sound reasoning on the subject. For I must again insist, and shall endeavor specifically to show, that this hypothesis of infinite power and goodness is equally necessary to the evolutionist and to the believer in special creations, unless all speculation on the genesis of the world is to end in blind chance, and the negation of a personal creating power of any kind.