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species, or by an Eternal Succession from preceding individuals of the same species, without any evidence of a Beginning or prospect of an End, has no where been met by so full an answer, as that afforded by the phenomena, of fossil Organic Remains.

In the course of our inquiry, we have found abundant proofs, both of the Beginning and the End of several successive systems of animal and vegetable life; each compelling us to refer its origin to the direct agency of Creative Interference; "We conceive it undeniable, that we see, in the transition from an Earth peopled by one set of animals to the same Earth swarming with entirely new forms of organic life, a distinct manifestation of creative power transcending the operation of known laws of nature: and it appears to us, that Geology has thus lighted a new lamp along the path of Natural Theology."*

Whatever alarm therefore may have been excited in the earlier stages of their development, the time is now arrived when Geological discoveries appear to be so far from disclosing any phenomena, that are not in harmony with the arguments supplied by other branches of physical Science, in proof of the existence and agency of One and the same all-wise and all-powerful Creator, that they add to the evidences of Natural Religion links of high importance that have confessedly been wanting, and are now filled up by

rive at full maturity. In a more extended sense, the term is also applied to those progressive changes in fossil genera and species, which have followed one another during the deposition of the strata of the earth, in the course of the gradual advancement of the grand system of Creation. The same term has been adopted by Lamarck, to express his hypothetical views of the derivation of existing species from preceding species, by successive Transmutations of one form of organization into another form, independent of the influence of any creative Agent. It is important that these distinctions should be rightly understood, lest the frequent application of the word Development, which occurs in the writings of modern physiologists, should lead to a flse inference, that the use of this term implies an admission of the theory of Transmutation with which Lamarck has associated it.

* British Critic, No, XVII. Jan. 1831, p. 194,

facts which the investigation of the structure of the Earth has brought to light.

"If I understand Geology aright, (says Professor Hitchcock,) so far from touching the eternity of the world, it proves more directly than any other science can, that its revolutions and races of inhabitants had a commencement, and that it contains within itself the chemical energies, which need only to be set at liberty, by the will of their Creator, to accomplish its destruction. Because this science teaches that the revolutions of nature have occupied immense periods of time, it does not therefore teach that they form an eternal series. It only enlarges our conceptions of the Deity; and when men shall cease to regard Geology with jealousy and narrow-minded prejudices, they will find that it opens fields of research and contemplation as wide and as grand as astronomy itself."* †

"There is in truth, (says Bishop Blomfield) no opposition nor inconsistency between Religion and Science, commonly so called, except that which has been conjured up by injudicious zeal or false philosophy, mistaking the ends of a divine revelation." And again in another passage of the same powerful discourse, after defining the proper objects for the exercise of the human understanding, his Lordship most justly observes, "Under these limitations and corrections we may join in the praises which are lavished upon philosophy and science, and fearlessly go forth with their votaries into all the various paths of research, by which the mind of man pierces into the hidden treasures of nature;

* Hitchcock's Geology of Massachusetts, p. 395.

"Why should we hesitate to admit the existence of our Globe through periods as long as geological researches require; since the sacred word does not declare the time of its original creation; and since such a view of its antiquity enlarges our ideas of the operations of the Deity in respect to duration, as much as astronomy does in regard to space? Instead of bring. ing us into collision with Moses, it seems to me that Geology furnishes us with some of the grandest conceptions of the Divine Attributes and Plans to be found in the whole circle of human knowledge." Hitchcock's Geology of Massachusetts, 1835, p. 225.

harmonizes its more conspicuous features, and removes the veil which to the ignorant or careless observer, obscures the traces of God's glory in the works of his hands."*

The disappointment which many minds experience, at finding in the phenomena of the natural world no indications of the will of God, respecting the moral conduct or future prospects of the human race, arises principally from an indistinct and mistaken view of the respective provinces of Reason and Revelation.

By the exercise of our Reason, we discover abundant evidences of the Existence, and of some of the Attributes of a supreme Creator, and apprehend the operations of many · of the second causes or instrumental agents, by which he upholds the mechanism of the material World; but here its province ends: respecting the subjects on which, above all others, it concerns mankind to be well informed, namely, the will of God in his moral government, and the future prospects of the human race, reason only assures us of the absolute need in which we stand of a Revelation. Many of the greatests proficients in philosophy have felt and expressed these distinctions. "The consideration of God's Providence (says Boyle) in the conduct of things corporeal may prove to a well-disposed Contemplator, a Bridge, whereon he may pass from Natural to Revealed Religion.. '† ‡

"Next (says Locke) to the knowledge of one God, Maker

* Sermon at the opening of King's College, London, 1831, pp. 19. 14. Christian Virtuoso, 1690, p. 42.

"Natural Religion, as it is the first that is embraced by the mind, so it is the foundation upon which revealed religion ought to be superstructed, and is as it were, the stock upon which Christianity must be engrafted. For though I readily acknowledge natural religion to be insufficient, yet I think it very necessary. It will be to little purpose to press an infidel with arguments drawn from the worthiness, that appears in the Christian doctrine to have been revealed by God, and from the miracles its first preachers wrought to confirm it; if the unbeliever be not already persuaded, upon the account of natural religion, that there is a God, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." Boyle's Christian Virtuoso, Part. II. prop. 1..

of all things, a clear knowledge of their duty was wanting to mankind."

And He, whose name, by the consent of nations, is above all praise, the inventor and founder of the Inductive Philosophy, thus breathes forth his pious meditation, "Thy creatures have been my books, but thy Scriptures much more. I have sought thee in the courts, fields, and gardens, but I have found thee in thy temples." Bacon's Works, V. 4. fol. p. 487.

The sentiment here quoted had been long familiar to him, for it pervades his writings; it is thus strikingly expressed in his immortal work. "Concludamus igitur theologiam sacram ex Verbo et Oraculis Dei, non ex lumine Naturæ aut Rationis dictamine hauriri debere. Scriptum est enim cœli enarrant Glorium Dei, at nusquam scriptum invenitur, cœli enarrant Voluntatem Dei.”* t

Having then this broad line marked out before us, and

⚫ Bacon De Augm. Scient. Lib. IX. ch, i.

"Nothing," says Sir I. F. W. Herschel, "can be more unfounded than the objection which has been taken in limine, by persons well meaning perhaps, certainly narrow-minded, against the study of natural philosophy, and indeed against all science,-that it fosters in its cultivators an undue and overweening self-conceit, leads them to doubt the immortality of the soul, and to scoff at revealed religion. Its natural effect, we may confidently assert, on every well consituted mind, is and must be the direct contrary. No doubt, the testimony of natural reason, on whatever exercised, must of necessity stop short of those truths which it is the object of revelation to make known; but while it places the existence and principal attributes of a Deity on such grounds as to render doubt absurd and atheism ridiculous, it unquestionably opposes no natural or necessary obstacle to farther progress; on the contrary, by cherishing as a vital principle and unbounded spirit of inquiry, and ardency of expectation, it unfetters the mind from prejudices of every kind, and leaves it open and free to every impression of a higher nature which it is susceptible of receiving, guarding only against enthusiasm and selfdeception by a habit of strict investigation, but encouraging, rather than suppressing, every thing that can offer a prospect or a hope beyond the present obscure and unsatisfactory state. The character of the true Philosopher is to hope all things not impossible, and to believe all things not unreasonable." Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy, p. 7.

with a clear and perfect understanding, as to what we ought, and what we ought not to expect from the discoveries of Natural Philosophy, we may strenuously pursue our labours in the fruitful field of Science, under the full assurance that we shall gather a rich and abundant harvest, fraught with endless evidences of the existence, and wisdom, and power, and goodness of the Creator.

"The Philosopher (says Professor Babbage) has conferred on the Moralist an obligation of surpassing weight; in unveiling to him the living miracles which teem in rich exuberance around the minutest atom, as well as through the largest masses of ever active matter, he has placed before him resistless evidence of immeasurable design."*

"See only (says Lord Brougham) in what contemplations the wisest of men end their most sublime inquiries! Mark where it is that a Newton finally reposes after piercing the thickest veil that envelopes nature-grasping and arresting in their course the most subtle of her elements and the swiftest-traversing the regions of boundless space-exploring worlds beyond the solar way—giving out the law which binds the universe in eternal order! He rests, as by an inevitable necessity, upon the contemplation of the great First Cause, and holds it his highest glory to have made the evidence of his existence, and the dispensations of his power and of his wisdom better understood by men."+

If then it is admitted to be the high and peculiar privilege of our human nature, and a devotional exercise of our most exalted faculties, to extend our thoughts towards Immensity and into Eternity, to gaze on the marvellous Beauty that pervades the material world, and to comprehend that Witness of himself, which the Author of the Universe has set before us in the visible works of his Creation; it is clear that next to the study of those distant worlds which engage the contemplation of the Astronomer, the largest and most su

* Babbage on the Economy of Manufactures, 1 Ed, p. 319.
+ Lord Brougham's Discourse of Natural Theology, 1 Ed. p. 194.

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