248 LAY SERMONS, ESSAYS, AND REVIEWS. [xn. 



plan, because it has pleased the Creator to set before Himself a 

 &quot; divine exemplar or archetype,&quot; and to copy it in His works ; 

 and somewhat ill, those who hold this view imply, in some of 

 them. That such verbal hocus-pocus should be received as 

 science will one day be regarded as evidence of the low state of 

 intelligence in the nineteenth century, just as we amuse our 

 selves with the phraseology about Nature s abhorrence of a 

 vacuum, wherewith Torricelli s compatriots were satisfied to 

 explain the rise of water in a pump. And be it recollected that 

 this sort of satisfaction works not only negative but positive ill, 

 by discouraging inquiry, and so depriving man of the usufruct 

 of one of the most fertile fields of his great patrimony, 

 Nature. 



The objections to the doctrine of the origin of species by 

 special creation which have been detailed, must have occurred, 

 with more or less force, to the mind of every one who has 

 seriously and independently considered the subject. It is 

 therefore no w r onder that, from time to time, this hypothesis 

 should have been met by counter hypotheses, all as well, and 

 some better, founded than itself; and it is curious to remark 

 that the inventors of the opposing views seem to have been led 

 into them as much by their knowledge of geology, as by their 

 acquaintance with biology. In fact, when the mind has once 

 admitted the conception of the gradual production of the present 

 physical state of our globe, by natural causes operating through 

 long ages of time, it will be little disposed to allow that living 

 beings have made their appearance in another way, and the 

 speculations of De Maillet and his successors are the natural 

 complement of Scilla s demonstration of the true nature of 

 fossils. 



A contemporary of Newton and of Leibnitz, sharing therefore 

 in the intellectual activity of the remarkable age which wit 

 nessed the birth of modern physical science, Benoit de Maillet 

 spent a long life as a consular agent of the French Government 

 in various Mediterranean ports. For sixteen years, in fact, he 

 held the office of Consul-General in Egypt, and the wonderful 



