NEWPUBLICATIONS^, 24 1 



be drawn up in the language of inquiry, and that they should be 

 compatible with common sense. With these characters, we will 

 not object to them, though they may land us upon what may be 

 considered, by some, as heterodoxical ground. As with flint and 

 steel the latent fire is stricken outy so, by the collision of minds^ 

 truth is elicited ; hence, we say, strike ! burn your tinder, that per- 

 ftdventure your blaze may illuminate those spaces where light has 

 never before penetrated. 



The " Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation," is the title 

 of an English publication, which has recently been re-printed in 

 this country, the perusal of which, in our case, has excited a vari- 

 ety of emotions, of which the pleasurable have, upon the whole^ 

 preponderated. The design of the author in this work, is to over- 

 throw the commonly received doctrines of the origin of man, and 

 the numerous species of living beings which people the earth, the 

 air, and water ; or, perhaps, it is more agreeable to the general 

 tenor of the work to say, that it calls in question the validity of 

 the prevailing opinions upon this subject. 



The main points which are attempted to be established j are, that 

 la series of changes in animals and plants has taken place^ by which 

 Ithey have advanced from lower to higher grades ; that these 

 changes have been effected by the influence of physical agenciesj 

 and in which they were controlled in their upward progress by the 

 jconditions of the medium in which they were immersed. Man, 

 for example, came first into existence as a monad or simple cell ; 

 but has since advanced by ordinary generation from this humble 

 rank to his present exalted station, having passed through a series 

 of changes, the different stages of which are represented by the 

 molusca^ fish, reptile, and quadruped. 



The proofs adduced in support of this hypothesis, are derived 

 mainly from geology ; especially from those observations which 

 >eem to favor the doctrine that the beings entombed in the rocks^ 

 ;aken together, form a series of advancing types from the simplest 

 the most complex ; from the low to the high, when viewed as 

 time — the most advanced belonging to the period just anterior 

 the present, — the simplest and lowest, to the period most re- 

 note. 



Having stated thus briefly the design of the work, and the foun- 



