THE ORIGIN OF THE ANIMATED TRIBES. 105 



upon its shell, would, on this theory, require the particular 

 care of that same Almighty who willed at once the whole 

 means by which INFINITY was plenished with its worlds ! 



The question is here treated as one to be settled by philo- 

 sophy. There are, however, objections of a different character 

 to the idea of natural procedure in organic creation. Most 

 minds are prepossessed by a more or less distinct conclusion 

 in favour of organic creation by some kind of special exercise 

 of divine power. This is the idea which first arose in the 

 human family, being that which the unassisted mind is dis- 

 posed to form out of the appearances presented to it ; pre- 

 cisely as, with respect to the motions of the heavenly bodies, 

 the geocentric theory was that which the appearances first sug- 

 gested, and therefore was first embraced by man. It took 

 some time to introduce the heliocentric theory, even after it 

 had been established by proof. So is there a force of prejudice 

 to be overcome in this case, before any new hypothesis on the 

 subject can expect to be fairly judged. It has even been said 

 that to presume a creation of living beings as a series of na- 

 tural events, is equivalent to superseding the whole doctrine 

 of the divine authorship of organic nature. With such a 

 notion infesting the mind, it must of course be almost hopeless 

 that the question should be candidly entertained. There can, 

 in reality, be no reason adduced for holding this as necessarily 

 following from the idea of organic creation in the manner of 

 law, or by a natural method, any more than from a similar 

 view of inorganic creation. The whole aim of science from 

 the beginning has been to ascertain law ; one set of phenomena 

 after another has been brought under this conception, without 

 our ever feeling that God was less the adorable creator of his 

 own world. It seems strange that a stand should appear ne- 

 cessary at this particular point in the march of science. 

 Perhaps if our ordinary ideas respecting natural law were 

 more just, the difficulty might be lessened. It cannot be suf- 

 ficiently impressed that the whole idea relates only to the 

 mode in which the Deity has been pleased to manifest his 

 power in the external world. It leaves the absolute fact of 

 his authorship of and supremacy over nature, precisely where 

 it was ; only telling us that, instead of dealing with the natural 

 world as a human being traffics with his own affairs, adjusting 

 each circumstance to a relation with other circumstances as 

 they emerge, in the mode befitting his finite capacity, the 

 Creator has originally conceived, and since sustained, arrange- 



