This theory does not necessarily affirm that creation is miraculous, in the sense of being contrary to or subversive of law; law and order are as applicable to creation as to any other process. It does not contradict the idea of successive creations. There is no necessity that the process should be instantaneous and without progression. It does not imply that all kinds of creation are alike. There may be higher and lower kinds. It does not exclude the idea of similarity or dissimilarity of plan and function as to the products of creation. Distinct products of creation may be either similar to each other in different degrees, or dissimilar. It does not even exclude evolution or derivation to a certain extent: anything once created may, if sufficiently flexible and elastic, be evolved or involved in various ways. Indeed, creation and derivation may, rightly understood, be complementary to each other. Created things, unless absolutely unchangeable, must be more or less modified by influences from within and from without, and derivation or evolution may account for certain subordinate changes of things already made. Man, for example, may be a product of creation, yet his creation may have been in perfect harmony with those laws of procedure which the Creator has set for His own operations. He may have been preceded by other creations of things more or less similar or dissimilar. He may have been created by the same processes with some or all of these, or by different means. His body may have been created in one way, his soul in another. He may, nay, in all probability would be, part of a plan of which some parts would approach very near to him in structure or functions. After his creation, spontaneous culture and outward circumstances may have moulded him into varieties, and given him many different kinds of speech and of habits. These points are so obvious to common sense that it would be quite unnecessary to insist on them, were they not habitually overlooked or misstated by evolutionists. The creation hypothesis is also free from some of the difficulties of evolution. It avoids the absurdity of an eternal progression from the less to the more complex. It provides in will, the only source of power actually known to us by ordinary experience, an intelligible origin of nature. It does not require us to contradict experience by supposing that there are no differences of kind or essence in things. It does not require us to assume, contrary to experience, an invariable tendency to differentiate and improve. It does not exact the bridging over of all gaps which may be found between the several grades of beings which exist or have existed.