1 PROOFS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AUTHORITIES, ETC. 



We answer If " the mind and morals of man" are, as Professor 

 Sedgwick admits, " under the regulation of fixed laws," the pallia- 

 tions and aggravations here spoken of must be determined by merely 

 the mutual action and re-action of the laws themselves, as has been 

 explained in our chapter on the Mental Constitution of Animals. 

 To talk as if ive could change a moral law is absurd. Mechanical 

 and chemical laws are, however, liable to be modified in their results 

 by each other, precisely as the moral laws are. So in every way 

 the professor fails. After such admissions as he has made, to come 

 to such a " then" as we find in the above sentence, shows a degree 

 of severity in logic which he may be assured we are far from 

 envying. 



Strange to say, after all, Mr. Sedgwick admits the premises for the 

 only positive conclusion aimed at in the Vestiges. He says " If it 

 be affirmed that the origin of the organic world was determined by 

 law, we believe the proposition true partly on the strength of what 

 seems a sound analogy ; for if the organic world be governed by law, 

 we cannot believe that it commenced without law ; partly on its 

 obvious adaptation to the existing laws of the organic world ; partly 

 also on the ascertained historical development of the forms and func- 

 tions of organic life during successive epochs, which seems to mark a 

 gradual evolution of Creative Power manifested by a gradual ascent 

 towards a higher type of being. But " 



It cannot fail to be observed by any one who has comprehended 

 the true scope of the Vestiges, that, in saying, " If the organic world 

 be governed by law, we cannot believe that it commenced without 

 law," Professor Sedgwick gives his sanction to the grand doctrine of 

 that work, and abandons its true opposite of a creation by miraculous 

 interference. We need not here stop to consider how far he is self- 

 consistent. Enough for the mean time, that he fully approves that 

 doctrine which mainly we endeavour to advance, and does this partly, 

 even, by the same arguments as those on which we proceed for, of 

 course, when we have settled that organic creation was a series of 

 natural events, it matters comparatively little as to the special events 

 themselves, whether they be such as the Development Hypothesis 

 suggests or some other. We, for our part, have no such particular 

 affection for that hypothesis as to be unwilling to give respectful 

 consideration to any other that may be suggested : only, so long as 

 it stands alone, we are willing to entertain it. 



He goes on " When it is affirmed that the successive parts of the 

 great organic sequence are related to one another only in the way of 

 material cause and material effect, we test the proposition by an appeal 

 to facts and experiments the last appeal on all questions of natural 

 science and on the strength of this appeal we deny the truth of the 

 asserted proposition." . . . . " Those who exclude from their creed 

 all conception of a personal and intelligent God of nature, must believe 

 that dead, inanimate matter may, without external aid, and by its 

 own inherent powers, work itself into what is vital, sensitive, and 

 intellectual." The professor then goes on to argue for the existence 



