We leave to them and their various sects the solution to their own satisfaction of the numerous puzzles to which they are heir. The dogmatic denial is merely religious fanaticism in reverse. Anything which exhibits characteristics of whatever sort in the present moment, must necessarily have acquired them in a previous state.
Nothing can be clearer than that.
Nor can that which is now able to operate an organism have acquired the power to operate it in anything but a graded series of other organisms. Anything else violates the whole law of evolution. In the light of present knowledge, there is unlimited room for the postulate of an invisible operative power behind the physical body. If it exists, it must have acquired its functions through evolution. Each different function must have been acquired through appropriate exercise.