NERA
(_Pieces of Protoplasm which have originated by Spontaneous Generation._)

WAS MAN CREATED?

WHAT SCIENCE CAN ANSWER.

"The object of science is not to find out what we like or what we
dislike--the object of science is Truth." In the discussion of the
subject, "_Was Man Created?_" our object will be--not to study the many
ways God might have created him, but the way he actually did create him,
for all ways would be alike easy to an Omnipotent Being.

Let us look at man and ask the question: What is there about him which
would need an independent act of creation any more than about the
"mountain of granite or the atom of sand"? The answer comes back:
Besides life, man has many mental attributes. Let us direct our
attention at first to the grand phenomena of life, and then to man's
attributes.

To discover the nature of life, to find out what life really is, it
would be folly to commence by comparing man, the perfection of living
beings, with an inorganic or inanimate substance like a brick, to
discover the hidden secret; for, as Professor Orton says:[3] "That only
is essential to life which is common to all forms of life. Our brains,
stomach, livers, hands and feet are luxuries. They are necessary to make
us human, but not living beings." Instead of man, then, it will be
necessary for us to take the simplest being which possesses such a
phenomena; and such are the little homogeneous specks of protoplasm,
constituting the Group _Monera_, which are entirely destitute of
structure, and to which the name "Cytode" has been given. In the fresh
waters in the neighborhood of Jena minute lumps of protoplasm were
discovered by Haeckel, which, on being examined under the most powerful
lens of a microscope, were seen to have no constant form, their outlines
being in a state of perpetual change, caused by the protrusion from
various parts of their surface of broad lobes and thick finger-like
projections, which, after remaining visible for a time, would be
withdrawn, to make their appearance again on some other part of the
surface. To this little mass of protoplasm Haeckel has given the name
_Protanaeba primitiva_. These little lumps multiply by spontaneous
division into two pieces, which, on becoming dependent, increase in size
and acquire all the characteristics of the parent. From this
illustration, it will be seen that "reproduction is a form of nutrition
and a growth of the individual to a size beyond that be