The modern naturalist, on the other hand, although assuming the existence of the Omnipotent God, supposes the human mind to have become what it is by the action of organized matter beginning at the lowest point of animal life, and going on through successive gradations of animal structure, until habits are formed which become instincts, and instincts are gradually developed into mind. Take away the machinery that is employed, and you have left no conception of the immortal and indestructible nature of the human soul. The material out of which it is constructed is all of the earth earthy, and the twofold question arises: first, whether this was the probable method employed by the Omnipotent Creator; and, secondly, whether it will account for such an existence as we have reason to believe the mind of man to be. There is another point in the parallel between the Platonic and the Darwinian systems which is worthy of note. We have seen that, according to Plato, when the Demiurgus had completed the construction of the Kosmos and that of the human soul, he retired and left to the gods the construction of a mortal body for man and of bodies of the inferior animals into which man would become degraded. According to Darwin, the Omnipotent God constructs some very low form of animal, and then, retiring from the work of direct creation, he leaves the laws of natural and sexual selection to operate in the production of higher animals through the process that is called evolution. Perhaps it may be unscientific to ask why the Omnipotent God should cease to exercise, or refrain from exercising, his power of special creation, after he has once exerted it. Perhaps there is some view of the nature and purposes of that infinite being which would render such an abstention from his powers a probable occurrence. But it is difficult to conceive what this view can be. If we take a comprehensive survey of all the facts concerning the animal kingdom that are within the reach of our observation; and if, then, in cases where we know of no intermediate or transitional states, we assume that they must have existed; if we array the whole in support of a certain theory which undertakes to account both for what we see and for what we do not see, we very easily reach the conclusion that the Omnipotent God performed but one act of special creation, or at most performed but a very few of such acts, and those of the rudest and simplest types, and then left all the subsequent and splendid exhibitions of animal structure to be worked out by natural selection. This is the scientific method adopted by the evolution school to account for the existence of all the higher animals of which we have knowledge, man included. It may be very startling, but we must acknowledge it as the method of action of the Omnipotent God, because it is said there is no logical impossibility in it.