6o THE HISTORY OF CREATION. 



should be obliged to bave recourse to the action of super- 

 natural forces ; tbat is, to tlie interference of miracles in the 

 natural course of things. It is only through miracles that 

 these revolutions of the earth could have been brought about, 

 and it is only through miracles that, after their cessation 

 and at the commencement of each new period, a new animal 

 and vegetable kingdom could have been created. But 

 science has no room for miracles, for by miracles we under- 

 stand an interference of supernatural forces in the naturxl 

 course of development of matter. ' 



Just as the great authority which Linnseus gained by 

 his system of distinguishing and naming organic species 

 led his successors to a complete ossification, as it were, of the 

 dogmatic idea of species and to a real abuse of the syste- 

 matic distinction implied by it, so the great services which 

 Cuvier had rendered to the knowledge and distinction 

 of extinct species became the ca^use of a general adoption 

 of his theory of revolutions and catastrophes, and of the 

 false views of creation connected therewith. The conse- 

 quence of this was that, during the first half of our century, 

 most zoologists and botanists clung to the opinion that a 

 series of independent periods in the organic history of the 

 earth had existed ; that each period was distinguished by 

 distinct and peculiar kinds of animal and vegetable species ; 

 that these were annihilated at the termination of the period 

 by a general revolution ; and that, after the cessation of the 

 latter, a new world of different species of animals and plants 

 was created. 



It is true some independent thinkers, above all the great 

 physical philosopher, Lamarck, even at an early period, set 

 forth a series of weighty reasons which refuted Cuvier's 



