Iviii PROOFS, ILLUSTRATIONS, AUTHORITIES, ETC. 



without any need of God's presence or agency ; so that he might 

 henceforward give himself up to undisturbed repose." 



Strange to say, Dr. Hitchcock, in the earlier part of these remarks, 

 only repeats our own arguments. Law, we have over and over 

 again said, is merely a term of human convenience to express the 

 orderly manner in which the will of God is worked out in external 

 nature; and He must be ever present in the arrangements of the 

 universe, as the only means by which they could be even for a mo- 

 ment sustained. Amherst College, however, does not seem to be 

 fortunate in the logical lucidity of its president, for, forgetting the 

 representation he has given of a hypothesis of natural creation, he 

 immediately goes on to speak of an " only difference" between the 

 ordinary and the novel views of the creator, a difference very great 

 indeed, if it existed, no less than that the latter imply a God with- 

 drawn into repose. Still the introduction of this "difference" seems 

 only to be some ill-considered interpolation, for, no sooner is it 

 past, with some remarks on the atheistic system of Laplace, than he 

 quietly resumes : " From these views and reasonings, it is clear, I 

 think, that the hypothesis of creation by law does not necessarily 

 destroy the theory of religion." 



Having thus come to preciselj 7 the same general doctrine on the 

 subject of creation as the Author of the Vestiges, why does Dr. 

 Hitchcock, it may be asked, present himself as an opponent of that 

 work ? Reading onward, we find him saying, " The influence of 

 the hypothesis upon practical religion is disastrous." " It is obviously 

 the intention and desire of the advocates of this hypothesis to re- 

 move God away from his works and from their thoughts ; else why 

 should they so strenuously reject the doctrine of miracles ?" " True, 

 when we look at the subject philosophically, we must acknowledge 

 that an event is just as really the work of God when brought about 

 by laws which he ordains and energises, as by miraculous interposi- 

 tion. Still the practical influence of these two views of Providence 

 is quite different." Now, what is all this but confusion and contra- 

 diction in Dr. Hitchcock's own mind? Admitted, says he, the 

 hypothesis of creation by law does not necessarily make God less a 

 creator or banish his energising will from the course of mundane 

 affairs. It must be condemned, however, because its influence on 

 practical religion is disastrous. How can these two things be both 

 true ? Its advocates reject miracles, says he. Very true, in crea- 

 tion, because creation cannot have been both in the manner of law 

 and by miraculous interposition. The advocates of the doctrine feel 

 that of which Dr. Hitchcock appears utterly unconscious, a wish to 

 be consistent. When Dr. Hitchcock looks at the subject " philo- 

 sophically," he sees no objection to the hypothesis. Then we are, 

 after all, right in philosophy, by the confession of this learned anta- 

 gonist; and to be right philosophically is, of course, all we require 

 with one who professes to be a man of science, and desires to recon- 

 cile science and religion. Yes, but the " practical influence " makes 

 the matter different. That is to say, a thing may be philosophically 



