And I submit that, given the general fact that God originated everything in heaven and earth (as first of all stated generally in Genesis i. 1-3), the essential part of the detailed or specific creation subsequently spoken of, was the Divine origination of the types, the ideal forms, into which matter endowed with life was to develop; without any necessary reference to how, or in what time, the Divine creation was actually realized or accomplished on earth.  It may be that the form so conceived and drawn in Nature’s book by the Divine Designer is a final form, up to which development shall lead, and beyond which (at least in a material sense) it shall not go; or it may be that it is a type intended to be transitory;[1] but both the intermediate and final forms must take their origin first in the Divine Mind, and be prescribed from the Heavenly Throne, before the obedient matter and forces and the life-endowment could co-operate to result in the realization of the forms and the population of the globe.

[Footnote 1:  The idea which I am endeavouring to make clear is well illustrated by another passage in one of the Mosaic books—­the account of the Tabernacle.  Moses had no idea of his own of the structure, its furniture, implements, or the forms of these.  The narrative expressly states that the Divine power originated the designs, and caused Moses to understand them.  In a human work the designer would have drawn the objects with measures and specifications, and given the papers to the workmen.  With the Divine work, where the design is in the Divine Thought, and the workmen and builders are forces and elementary matter, the process is a mystery, but in its practical bearing is understood from analogy.  The Tabernacle was truly God’s creation, because it was all commanded in design and “pattern” by the Almighty before Moses put together the materials that realized the pattern in the camp of Israel.]

The reason why it is the essential part, is, that when once the Divine command issued, the result followed inevitably—­that will “go without saying.”

In human affairs, also, we speak of the architect having created the palace or cathedral, or the ironclad; meaning thereby not the slow process of cutting and joining stone, or riveting steel plates, but the higher antecedent act of mind in evoking the ideal form and providing for all contingencies in the adaptation and subsequent working of the finished structure.  And if we limit this use of the term “creation” somewhat in speaking of human works, it is because the concept of the human mind so often fails of realization; that it is one thing to design, and another to accomplish.  The grandest design for a palace may fail to stand because some peculiarity of the stone has been forgotten, or some character of foundation and subsoil has been misunderstood.  The noblest form of turret-ship may prove useless