POSTSCRIPT. 201 



which he applies the term — namely, the sciences referring to the 



origin of language and arts, the origin of species, and the forma- 

 tion of globes. He does not call these sciences palaetiological, 

 because, "in his opinion, we have to seek for an ancient and different 

 class of causes, as affecting them, from any which are now seen 

 operating." Dr. Whewell's actual definition of palsetiological 

 sciences was — "those in which the object is to ascend from the pre- 

 sent state of things to a more ancient condition, from which the pre- 

 sent is derived by intelligible causes." The actual extent of this 

 mistake must appear very small, when the reader learns that 

 Dr. Whewell considers the origin of globes, of species, &c., as 

 events out of the course of nature," which is the point to 

 \rhich my arguments were addressed. It would appear, how- 

 ever, that our opposite views may be more correctly stated in 

 the following manner : — He alleges that science fails to explain 

 to us the events involved in the palatiological sciences. I say 

 that science, read aright, gives us vestiges or traces of the causes 

 of those events, tending to a conviction that they were of the 

 same order as those which at present preside over nature. I am 

 sorry that I cannot compliment the learned Master of Trinity on 

 his generosity, or even fairness, in attributing to me the belief 

 that the essence of the system in which we live, " consists in life 

 growing out of dead matter, the higher animals out of the lower, 

 and man out of brutes," (p. 19.) To establish the independence 

 of the natural world on all but that form of the divine working 

 which we speak of as natural law, it was doubtless necessary to 

 show grounds for believing that species originated in the manner 

 explained in the Vestiges; but this belief could never be con- 

 sidered as the essence of the system of order by which God rules 

 the world. If he had not been more eager to use ridicule, or 

 take advantage of popular odium, than to appeal to rigid argu- 

 ment, he might have been checked by a pointed declaration in the 

 present volume, that my object is one " to which the idea of 

 an organic creation by law is only subordinate and ministrative," 

 in common with various other doctrines. 



It is fully admitted by Dr. Whewell, that the Deity operates 



