DR. WHEWELL's views CONSIDERED. 133 



short, all the comvxon operations of the physical world 

 were going on in their usual simplicity, obeying that 

 order which ice still see governing thenif while the 

 supposed extraordinary causes were in requisition 

 lor the development of the animal and vegetable 

 kingdoms. There surely hence arises a strong 

 presumption against any such causes. It becomes 

 much more likely that the latter phenomena 

 were evolved in the manner of law also, and 

 that we only dream of extraordinary causes here, 

 as men once dreamt of a special action of deity in 

 every change of wind and the results of each sea- 

 son, merely because they did not know the laws 

 by which the events in question were evolved. 



The writer of the critique in the Edinburgh Review 

 is another representative of opinion on this subject 

 whose ideas are worthy of notice. These ideas are 

 not very clear, but I shall endeavour to gather them 

 from the various parts of his paper where they are 

 expressed. He says of certain animals (p. 60) — 

 " They were not called into being by any law of 

 natiu^e, but by a power above nature." If he 

 means by a law of nature something independent 

 of the Deity, I entirely concur with him. Most 

 unquestionably, the animals resulted from a power, 

 which is above nature, in the sense of its being the 



