104 GENERAL CONSIDERATIONS RESPECTING 



it is mixed in regard to time, for the one class of phenomena 

 commenced, whenever the other had arrived at a point which 

 favoured or admitted of it ; life, as it were, pressed in as soon 

 as there were suitable conditions, and, once it had commenced, 

 the two classes of phenomena went on, hand in hand, together. 

 It is surely very unlikely a priori, that in two classes of pheno- 

 mena, to all appearance perfectly co-ordinate, and for certain 

 intimately connected, there should have been two totally dis- 

 tinct modes of the exercise of the divine power. Were such the 

 case, it would form a most extraordinary, and what to philo- 

 sophic consideration ought to be a most startling exception, 

 from that which we otherwise observe of the character of the 

 divine procedure in the universe. Further, let us consider the 

 comparative character of the two classes of phenomena, for 

 comparison may of course be legitimate until the natural system 

 is admitted. The absurdities into which we should thus be 

 led must strike every reflecting mind. The Eternal Sovereign 

 arranges a solar or an astral system, .by dispositions imparted 

 primordially to matter; he causes, "by the same majestic means, 

 vast oceans to form and continents to rise, and all the grand 

 meteoric agencies to proceed in ceaseless alternation, so as to 

 fit the earth for a residence of organic beings. But when, in 

 the course of these operations, fuci and corals are to be for 

 the first time placed in those oceans, a change in his plan of ad- 

 ministration is required. It is not easy to say what is presumed 

 to be the mode of his operations. The ignorant believe the 

 very hand of Deity to be at work. Amongst the learned, we 

 hear of " creative fiats," " interferences," " interpositions of the 

 creative energy," all of them very obscure phrases, apparently 

 not susceptible of a scientific explanation, but all tending simply 

 to this that the work was done in a marvellous way, and not 

 in the way of nature. Let the contrast between the two pro- 

 positions be well marked. According to the first, all is clone 

 by the continuous energy of the divine will a power which 

 has no regard to great or small : according to the second, there 

 is a procedure strictly resembling that of a human being in 

 the management of his affairs. And not only on this one 

 occasion, but all along the stretch of geological time, this 

 special attention is needed whenever a new family of organisms 

 is to be introduced : a new fiat for fishes, another for reptiles, a 

 third for birds ; nay, taking up the present views of geologists 

 as to species, such an event as the commencement of a certain 

 cephalopod, one with a few new nodulosities and corrugations 



