a few of this school
adopt the idealist philosophy, and affirm that "matter and force" are but
names for certain "modes of consciousness." It might be expected of them at
least to admit that opinions which repose on primary and fundamental {252}
intuitions, are especially and _par excellence_ scientific.

Such are some of the objections to the Christian conception of God. We may
now turn to those which are directed against God as the Creator, _i.e._ as
the absolute originator of the universe, without the employment of any
pre-existing means or material. This is again considered by Mr. Spencer as
a thoroughly illegitimate symbolic conception, as much so as the atheistic
one--the difficulty as to a _self-existent Creator_ being in his opinion
equal to that of a _self-existent universe_. To this it may be replied that
both are of course equally _unimaginable_, but that it is not a question of
facility of conception--not which is easiest to conceive, but which best
accounts for, and accords with, psychological facts; namely, with the
above-mentioned intuitions. It is contended that _we have_ these primary
intuitions, and that with these the conception of a self-existent Creator
is perfectly harmonious. On the other hand, the notion of a self-existent
universe--that there is no real distinction between the finite and the
infinite--that the universe and ourselves are one and the same things with
the infinite and the self-existent; these assertions, in _addition to_
being unimaginable, _contradict_ our primary intuitions.

Mr. Darwin's objections to "Creation" are of quite a different kind, and,
before entering upon them, it will be well to endeavour clearly to
understand what we mean by "Creation," in the various senses in which the
term may be used.

In the strictest and highest sense "Creation" is the absolute origination
of anything by God without pre-existing means or material, and is a
_supernatural_ act.[257]

In the secondary and lower sense, "Creation" is the formation of anything
by God _derivatively_; that is, that the preceding matter has been created
with the potentiality to evolve from it, under suitable conditions, {253}
all the various forms it subsequently assumes. And this power having been
conferred by God in the first instance, and those laws and powers having
been instituted by Him, through the action of which the suitable conditions
are supplied, He is said in this lower sense to create such various