206 GEOGENY. 



AU was irregular in those revolutions of which we have acquired 

 a knowledge ; no fact presents itself suggesting the idea of a 

 gradual diminution in the intensity of subterranean actions, and 

 leading us to think the earth has lost the property of being suc- 

 cessively broken and ridged in all directions. Nothing, therefore, 

 can assure us that the period of calm in which we have lived for 

 upwards of 5000 years (the period of the deluge), will not be dis- 

 turbed, in its turn, unexpectedly, by the appearance of some new 

 system of mountains ; the effect of a new dislocation of the soil, the 

 foundations of which earthquakes show not to be unshakable. 

 Hence it follows that the idea of an end, or a renewal of things 

 here below, as widely spread as the great inundation which has 

 passed, is also in the order of the laws which govern the universe. 



Geogeny. The history of the various systems which have been 

 imagined to explain the origin of the universe, and of the earth in 

 particular, might perhaps afford some attraction to the curious ; but, 

 besides occupying a great deal of time in pure romance, it is, per- 

 haps, better to forget the many mental vagaries we should be 

 forced to expose. A single geogeny is worthy of our attention ; 

 it is that which is related in the Book of Moses, and which, 

 after a lapse of more than 3000 years, still presents, on one 

 hand, the clearest application to the best established theories, 

 and, on the other, the most succinct account of great geological 

 facts. 



What is more rational, in fact, and more in conformity with 

 even our most precise knowledge, when we think of bringing order 

 into the general confusion of things, than to create the vehicle by 

 means of which the phenomena of light, of heat, &c., may be 

 manifest, and infuse life everywhere, than to collect the scattered 

 elements into groups separate from each other, than to establish 

 here and there centres of attraction around which all may gravitate 

 according to an immutable law ? Nevertheless, this is what we 

 find, with fewer details, no doubt, than we could give by means of 

 our acquired knowledge, in brief and common language intelligible 

 to all, in the first verses of Genesis, which thus state three succes- 

 sive and distinct facts. We there find, indeed, in outline: Dens 

 fecit LUCEM (the fluid of light, of heat, &c.), FIRMAMENTUM (space, 

 and all the masses scattered through it), SOLEM ET STELLAS (the 

 centres of attraction), &c. 



As to the organic creation, it is divided into four successive, and 

 also rational epochs. The first established vegetative life, or life 

 of nutrition, which is manifested not only in plants, but also in the 

 inferior animals, in which we find scarcely any other phenomena 

 than those of nutrition, growth, &c. Afterwards came the life of 

 relation or sensibility, instinct, intelligence, and will, successively 

 added, in different proportions, to the phenomena of simple existence. 



