Q. E. D.

Q. E. D., or New Light on the
Doctrine of Creation

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Doctrine of
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Title: Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation
Author: George McCready Price
Release Date: September 3, 2004 [EBook #13370]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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Q.E.D.
Or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation
By
GEORGE McCREADY PRICE
_Professor of Chemistry and Physics, Lodi Academy, California
Author of "Outlines of Modern Science and Modern Christianity," "The
Fundamentals of Geology," "God's Two Books," "Back to the Bible,"

"A Text-Book of General Science," etc._
"... and set you square with Genesis again." --Robert Browning.

1917

_To
WILLIAM CLEAVER WILKINSON Scholar, Critic, Poet and
Christian Gentleman
This book is dedicated by one who owes to his advice and kindly
sympathy more than can be expressed_

Preface
The great world disaster, ushered in with the dawn of that August
morning in 1914, has already brought revolutionary changes in many
departments of our thinking. But not the least of the surprises awaiting
an amazed world, whenever attention can again be directed to such
subjects, will be the realization that we have now definitely outgrown
many notions in science and philosophy which in the old order of
things were supposed to have been eternally settled.
There are but two theories regarding the origin of our world and of the
various forms of plants and animals upon it, Creation and
Evolution,--the latter assuming many modifications.
The essential idea of the Evolution theory is _uniformity_; that is, it
seeks to show that life in all its various forms and manifestations
probably originated by causes similar to or identical with forces and
processes now prevailing. It teaches the absolute supremacy and the
past continuity of natural law as now observed. It says that the changes
now going on in our modern world have always been in action and that
these present-day natural changes and processes are as much a part of
the origin of things as anything that ever took place in the past. In short,
Evolution as a philosophy of nature is an effort to smooth out all
distinction between Creation and the ordinary processes of nature that
are now under the régime of "natural law."
On the other hand, the essential idea of the doctrine of Creation is that,
back at a period called the "beginning," forces and powers were
brought into exercise and results were accomplished that have not since

been exercised or accomplished. That is, the origin of the first organic
forms, indeed of the whole world as we know it, was essentially and
radically different from the ways in which these forms are perpetuated
and the world sustained to-day. Time is in no way the essential idea in
the problem. The question of how much time was occupied in the work
of Creation is of no importance, neither is the question of how long ago
it took place. The one essential idea is that in its nature Creation is
essentially inscrutable; we can never hope to know just how it was
accomplished; we cannot expect to know the process or the details, for
we have nothing with which to measure it. The one essential thing in
the doctrine of Creation is that the origin of our world and of the things
upon it came about at some period of time in the past by a direct and
unusual manifestation of Divine power; and that since this original
Creation other and different forces and powers have prevailed to
sustain and perpetuate the forms of life and indeed the entire world as
then called into existence.
Accordingly, we might establish the Evolution doctrine by showing
that matter can be made _de novo_, that energy can be created or
increased in amount, that life can be made from the not-living, and that
new and distinct forms of life can be produced in modern times,--all by
natural law as now prevailing.
Or we can practically demonstrate the historical reality of a direct
Creation at some time in the past, if we can show that the net results of
all modern science tend to prove that the forces and processes now in
operation can never account for the origin of things; that matter, and
energy, and life, and the various forms of life must all have had