particular member of all the formations. I cannot admit the idea of the transformation of species from one formation to another." And so a very recent and capable observer, already quoted,* tells us that "species did not pass into one another by transmutation, but that each species was introduced in full perfection, remained unchanged during the term of their existence, and died in full perfection.” "As far as the evidence of geology extends, each species was introduced by the direct miraculous interference of a personal intelligence. There has indeed been a constantly increasing series, but the connection between the terms of the series has not been physical or genetic, but intellectual; not founded in the laws of reproduction, but in the eternal counsels of the Almighty." What we would be led by geological analogy to believe would be that each specific dispensation (e.g. the written) would remain intact and unprogressive, until the same miraculous power that called it into existence should, by the same supernatural interposition and attestation, replace it by another. The clouded gloss of language may be removed, and the creature may see the Creator face to face. But this will not be by any gradual self-clarifying power of the text, nor by the action of the human reader, but by the direct and miracle-attested agency of the Almighty Himself, as preliminary to a new and final stage of existence.†

I have now brought this inquiry as far as the limits of natural religion permit me to go. But the practical ques

* Professor Le Conte, Smithsonian Instit. Rep. 1857, p. 168. † See post, 227.

tion remains, if there be a written revelation, can this be anything else than the Christian Scriptures?

If the propositions which have been stated in this chapter may be fairly inferred from the phenomena of creation,—if, in other words, it be considered as thus established that man is in a state of exile from his God,—that the human heart, so far from maintaining a communion with God, is inclined more and more to place its affections on things earthly,— that the soul is reserved for a high future destiny, which demands that its free agency should remain unimpaired, but that there should be such influences about it as to educate it to patience, to submission, and to earnest endeavor,—that these disciplinary influences, however, are insufficient without special divine aid,-we are able to find not merely an explanation of but a reason for that very union of general laws with special providences, of blessings with warnings, of beneficence with discipline, of sunshine with storm, by which the operations of the material world are marked. Such a view, in fact, only completes the proof of that adaptation of cause to effect, and of that beneficent and general contrivance, which even when viewed in their merely material relations, go so far to establish the existence, the wisdom, the mercy, and the justice of God.

BOOK SECOND.

SKEPTICAL THEORIES.

CHAPTER I.

"AN IMPERFECT CREATOR."

§ 101. AN imperfect creation, it is said, argues an imperfect Creator. The logical force of this position has been already noticed.* It will further be examined under the

following heads :

α. INABILITY OF THE FINITE TO MEASURE.

§ 102. We stand, for instance, at the centre of one of our great Western prairies. We look at the distant horizon, and discover on it lines which appear to us, as in sharp precision they stand up against the vivid sky, like the castellated roof of a Gothic mansion. As we approach, the object gradually loses its architectural precision, and subsides, perhaps, into a low range of hills, perhaps into a

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* Ante, ? 87.

§ 101-102

series of cabins. On the other hand, under a less luminous atmosphere, the building of real splendor and beauty may, in the distant view, appear but as a hovel.

This is still more striking in the opinions we form of questions of possibility which are not within the range of visual observation. Many men of science scouted at the idea of crossing the Atlantic by steam: some men of science believed in the pretended moon discoveries of Locke. One of the most agreeable of our French North American explorers tells us a story of an Indian council which illustrates this. A young brave had been sent to Washington to confer with the Great Father. He returned, with a remarkable account of witches and wizards whom he had seen in endless processions in the East. All this was listened to with profound respect and confidence. He went on, however, to add that, among other things, he had observed a canoe sailing in the air with a ball of wind on top of it. At once the demeanor of his audience changed, and it being pronounced that so great a liar ought not to live, the narrator was forthwith shot. A Japanese king, we are told, was almost equally demonstrative of his disapproval of those who told him that in England water became solid in cold weather. Herodotus narrates-with all the gossiping vivacity of the most satisfied credulity— stories of monsters, dwarfs, giants, cannibals, of beasts that were three-quarters men, and men wholly beasts; of rivers that were scarcely less than oceans, and of palaces that were greater than pyramids. But, at the same time, after relating the observation of the Phoenician mariners, that in doubling what is now the Cape of Good Hope they had the meridian sun on the north, the same historian, himself not

the least philosophical of his order, says, "anybody else. may believe this, but to me it is perfectly incredible." To those who look upon such confusions of belief with unbelief, as the accompaniments of a primitive or barbaric state, it is only necessary to point out the period when the most cultivated people of the seventeenth century persecuted those who would not believe in witches, and those who would believe that the earth revolved round the sun.

§ 103. This imperfection of vision is a necessary incident of that limitation which, as will presently be seen, belongs to created things. This is admirably illustrated in the following remarks by Dr. Ferguson :-"If the human fœtus were qualified to reason of his prospects in the womb of his parent, as he may afterwards do in his range on this terrestrial globe, he might no doubt apprehend in the breach of his umbilical cord, and in his separation from the womb, a total extinction of life, for how could he conceive it to continue after his only supply of nourishment from the vital stock of his parent had ceased? He might indeed observe many parts of his organization and frame which would seem to have no relation to his state in the womb. For what purpose, he might say, this duct which leads from the mouth to the intestines? Why these bones that each apart become hard and stiff, while they are separated from one another by so many flexures or joints? Why these joints in particular made to move upon hinges, and these germs of teeth, which are pushing to be felt above the surface of the gums? Why the stomach through which nothing is made to pass? And these spongy lungs, so well fitted to drink up the fluids, but into which the blood that passes every