Although the problem of "creation,"--formerly thought so simple, and dated almost within human ken and the period of human history--has now been relegated to a period too distant to be imagined, it would be childish to say that on that account the problem has ceased to exist. Its limits have, it is true, been shifted; but we are bound to acknowledge that they have nowise been altered. The horizon may have broadened and receded before us more and more, but the relative position of the objects we have to investigate remains precisely the same. So too M. Blanchard:[319] There has never been witnessed, and it is impossible to imagine the apparition of a creature not derived from another creature: it would therefore be folly to pretend to an explanation of creation. If, as the advocates of transformism suppose, all species sprang from some primitive types, or even from a single primordial cell, the appearance, whether of those types or of that parent cell of the living world, would be neither more explicable nor less marvellous than the appearance of a host of creatures. And, in like manner, Darwin's great ally and admirer, Sir Charles Lyell, when he had time to realize all the bearings of his friend's theory, wrote to him,[320]--"I think the old 'creation' is almost as much required as ever." XVIII TO SUM UP It is time to return to the point from which we started our whole enquiry, and to ask what has been gathered in the course of it towards a solution of the question with which we began. That the Cosmos in which we dwell, the world of law, order, and life, has not existed for ever, we saw to be a truth enforced by the researches of physical Science, no less than by the clear teaching of reason. It certainly had a beginning, and there must be a cause to which that beginning was due,--a cause capable of producing all which we find to have been actually produced. The material Universe and the mechanism of the heavens,--organic life with all its infinite marvels and varieties--animal sensation--human intelligence--canons of beauty, the law of good and evil--all these must have existed potentially in the First Cause, as in the Source whence alone they could be derived. The Nature of this Cause was the object of our quest. In particular we set ourselves to examine the assertion now so loudly made that Science has found a full explanation in the forces of the Universe itself as they come within her cognizance, that is to say, the material forces which she can directly observe, and upon which she can experiment. In particular we have studied the Law of Evolution, in its various significations, and other laws subsidiary to it, in order to determine, from the point of view of reason and Science alone, whether it can be said that the prime factor of which we are in search is thus supplied.