212 PROGRESSIVE DEVELOPMENT. 



f 



they have engendered, in the form in which they have ex- 

 tensively occupied the minds of philosophers and theo- 

 logians of late years; and it may be, that in the light 

 developed by their conflicting affirmative and negative 

 arguments, a true modi/led theory will be brought into 

 view. 



A few years ago there was published an anonymous work, 

 entitled, " VESTIGES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY OP CREATION," 

 in which the idea that creation is the natural result of the 

 operation of certain fixed laws, is ingeniously maintained. 

 Though the author of that work does not reject the idea of a 

 remote, he rejects that of an immediate, Divine Agency, as 

 concerned in the generation and government of the outer 

 forms of nature; and as his positions, viewed in one light, 

 present, unintentionally, perhaps, on his part, a condensed 

 synopsis of the whole groundwork of the pantheistic and 

 materialistic philosophy, it is proper that they should here 

 be summarily exhibited. 



Assuming the correctness of the nebular theory of cosmical 

 creations (after epitomizing, in a cogent and felicitous manner, 

 the prominent points of evidence on which this theory is 

 based), the author urges this theory as exhibiting a succession 

 of law-governed changes, by which primordial matter was 

 resolved into stellar systems, solar systems, and planets, with 

 all their present general and particular movements in space. 

 The facts in Chemistry and Geology are then considered, as 

 showing that the present structure and physical arrangements 

 of our globe (together with all similar globes in space) 

 originated, probably, from laws governing solid, fluid, and 

 vaporiform substances. 



The progressive and law-determined development, also, of 

 organic beings, both in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, 



