b. GENERAL PROPOSITIONS BY WHICH THIS THEORY CAN

BE MET.

§ 275. a1. No progressive cosmical development.

There is no progressive cosmical development. The transformations of the globe, to which geology bears witness, were not symmetrical and gradual, but exceptional and convulsive, involving a break of continuity, and a new arrangement of the material before existing.*

§ 276. b1. Premeditation preceded creation.

There is evidence of premeditation prior to creation. Every prior type is an anticipation of that which is to succeed; all point back to an original comprehensive design and omnipotent and omniscient designer. "Enough has been already said," is the calm summary of Agassiz, "to show that the leading thought which runs through the successions of all organized beings in past ages is manifested again in new, in the phases of the development of living representatives of these different types. It exhibits everywhere the working of the same creative mind, through all time and upon the whole surface of the globe."+

§ 277. c'. New forms of life introduced at distinct periods.

We have specific proof of the introduction at precise periods not only of new forms of animal life, but of the reapplication of life itself.

§ 278. d1. Advance sometimes broken by retrogression.

* See ante, ? 79, 173.

Essay on Classification, p. 116. See ante, 8 32-35.

See ante, 8 78-9. See also Silliman's Journal, 1858, pp. 204–5.

As the terraces of geology ascend, and higher types appear, this superior order is broken in upon by an increased number of abnormal and degraded shapes.*

§ 279. e1. The rudimental atoms themselves prove contrivance.

The rudimental atoms are impressed to an eminent degree with the marks of a Creator. We have fifty-four or fifty-five substances which are indivisible and final, and which form the individual syllables of which the great book of nature is made up. But each one of these syllables shows a contrivance whose exquisiteness appears the more vividly as we contemplate the vast number of combinations to which they are adapted. First we have, as the marshaling agents of these atoms, three primary physical forces— polarization, chemical affinity, and cohesion. Then we find, as the manual by which these marshaling agents are to act, laws prescribing certain proportions, definite as to number and weight, in which alone these atoms unite.† In the august economy and simplicity by which these elements, in the various combinations of which they are capable, are made to serve the almost infinite purposes of cosmical creation, we may find additional reason for concurring in the remarks of Sir John Herschel:-" These discoveries effectually destroy the idea of an external self-existent matter,

* See Hugh Miller, Foot-Prints of the Creator, p. 192, etc. See also the theological bearings of these phenomena very strikingly depicted by Dr. Bushnell, Nature and the Supernat., p. 208.

†Thus oxygen and nitrogen are constructed as follows:-14 of oxygen to 8 of hydrogen: 14-24; 14-32; 14-40.

by giving to each of its atoms at once the essential characteristics of a manufactured article and a subordinate agent."*

§ 280. f1. This primary care presumes a continuing Providence.

If we assume, as does the development hypothesis, that each of these atoms contains the generative apparatus for the production of all future forms of life, then not only is the argument from contrivance indefinitely strengthened by the exhibition of so transcendently wonderful an apparatus, but we have increased energy given to the argument for a continuing special Providence. Is it probable that a God with wisdom, forethought, goodness, and power enough to construct such marvelously delicate and beneficent mechanisms, should, after the creative work is done, retire from the work of guiding and guarding that which was thus carefully made ?†

§ 281. g'. Physical forces involving a director.

Physical forces, themselves incapable of action unless directed by intelligence, have from time to time operated "to work out a condition of things which evince the presiding agency of the Divine mind, adjusting all the changes from first to last in view of a future definite end."‡

§ 282. h1. Creations exhibiting reciprocal adaptations. Creations, widely distinct in time, and having no connec

* See God Revealed in Creation, p. 32, by Mr. Walker, a book to which the reader is referred, as containing an able elucidation of this special topic.

† See ante, 234–5.

Walker's God Revealed in Creation, p. 78.

tion as to organic life, so fit in and adapt themselves to each other as to make one the complement of the other. Take, as an illustration of this, the juxtaposition, through the agency of widely separate creations, of coal, lime, and iron, in those neighborhoods and climate, where they would be most needed and most likely to be worked.*

§ 283. . "Development" makes "matter," create "mind."

The development hypothesis, like pantheism, involves the absurdity of matter creating mind.†

§ 284. k1. A first cause still remains.

The clock that goes a hundred years, requires winding up as much as one that goes a day. There is this distinction, however. The argument from contrivance increases as we increase the period during which the clock runs without being rewound.

"Nor can any such theory," says the author of the Greyson letters, "really affect the question of Theism at all; if, indeed, such rare 'transformations,' and 'transmutations,' and 'developments' of organized beings, as it supposes, (were there but any proof of them,) ought not rather to enhance the proof of Divine power and intelligence. Surely such transmutations not less require power and intelligence than the received hypothesis of successive creations; for, even if the elements of the material universe, if matter itself, be supposed eternal, it can never be proved that the properties and laws in virtue of which it has been 'developed' into such wondrous results inherently belong to it;

* See ante, 3 70.

† See ante, & 260.

or that if some properties did belong to it, a chance medley combination or blindly necessary application of them would make such a symmetrical and harmonious universe. If A, B, and C be all stamped by their respective signatures of design, it were strange to suppose that that inference is invalidated, because C came from B, and B from A.”

The "churn" by which the fluid of the milky-way is made up into stars, requires the application of an intelligent motive power, at least as much as if those stars were worked up by hand.

The "monad" that contains the germs of all future existences of the same family, shows a care at least as minute, a prevision at least as searching, a scheme of government at least as comprehensive, as is exhibited in a special continuous providence, giving to each birth its impulse, and each event its particular direction.

The author of the "Vestiges of Creation" himself, is careful—and it is believed sincerely to disavow the antitheistic inferences so generally attributed to his scheme. In point of fact, he himself finds an original motive power essential to make "development," more plausible. "The electric spark,” he tells us, "struck life into an elementary and reproductive germ; and sea-plants, the food of animals, first decked the rude pavement of the sea. 11*

* Observe on this point, the following passage from the "Westminster Review" for April, 1858, which may be considered as abandoning the whole of the anti-theistic inference from the development hypothesis: "It remains only to point out that while the genesis of the solar system, and of countless other systems like it, is