and Cosmogony, 121 



World and formation of the earth, he was no longer left to his 

 own judgement or fancy. Still, though thus restrained, it was 

 not necessary that his previous ideas shonld be erased. Hi^ 

 mind was now so controlled by divine irrfluence as to relate truth 

 only, so disposed as implicitly to make whatever additions or 

 alridgemenls the Creator thought proper to dictate. If any 

 person chooses to call this a circuitous revelation, I will not 

 quarrel with him, because there is a sense in which 1 can under- 

 stand it ; but if he will term it " u ciictiilous inspiration," I pro- 

 test against this as absolute nonsense, and appeal to the king's 

 English. 



I have to apologize to Dr. Prichard, for having inadvertently 

 exposed him to heavy censure from his opponent, who, it seems, 

 has fortunately discovered, through the medium of Nicholson's 

 Encyclopaedia, that ^ the whole order of testacea are 720/ desti- 

 tute of locomotion." Now any child, that ever saw a snail crawl, 

 or a crab walk upon the sea-shore, could have told him the 

 same thing ; though he might not indeed have been able to say, 

 how far certain species of the genus Ostrea can leap out of the 

 water, without consulting that scientific work. I have indeed 

 said*, "the production of zoophytes and testacea is justly re- 

 ferred by Dr. Prichard to this epoch, because they are destitute 

 of locomotive powers, which Moses positively assigns to all the 

 productions of the fifth period. But where is it asserted by me, 

 that " the order of testacea is destitute of locomotion?" the 



language which Mr. F. E s has attributed to rnef. He 



readily perceived, that to use the simple term testacea would, in 

 this instance, be of no service to his tottering — fallen hypothesis j 

 for, if but some species of testacea are destitute of locomotion, 

 my phraseology is correct, though like Moses I may not have 

 been specific enough for so minute a philosopher. 



When Mr. F. E s can no longer obtain " the cramle re- 



petila " from the twentieth verse of the Genesis of Moses, I 

 would recommend him to a similar case in the sixteenth propo- 

 aition of the third book of Euclid'l Elements. 



Here he will find something precisely to his taste; for though 

 the proposition is fairly demonstrated, yet several impossible 

 things seem to be demonstrable consequences of it. He will 

 thus have the honour of proposing a few paradoxes to that ob- 

 stinate class — the mathematicians. Let him however beware. — 

 Euclid has his admirers as well as Moses. I can assure him, he 

 will find their cramle repetita quite as high-seasoned, and much 

 harder of digestion than any he has had from the cosmalogists. 

 But would any rational person attempt to bring into discredit 



♦ Phil. Mag. No. 217, p. 841. t Ibid. No. 219, p. '21. 



the 



