268 NATURAL HISTORY. 



a scientific explanation, but all tending simply to this 

 that the work was done in a marvellous way, and not in 

 the way of nature. Let the contrast between the two 

 propositions be well marked. According to the first, all is 

 done by the continuous energy of the divine will a 

 power which has no regard to great or small : according to 

 the second, there is a procedure strictly resembling that of 

 a human being in the management of his affairs. And not 

 only on this one occasion, but all along the stretch of 

 geological time, this special attention is needed whenever 

 a new family of organisms is to be introduced ; a new fiat 

 for fishes, another for reptiles, a third for birds ; nay, 

 taking up the present views of geologists as to species, 

 such an event as the commencement of a certain cephalo- 

 pod, one with a few new nodulosities and corrugations 

 upon its shell, would, on this theory, require the particular 

 care of that same Almighty who willed at once the whole 

 means by which INFINITY was replenished with its 

 worlds.' 



It will be seen from the above characteristic quotation 

 that the theory of the ' special creation ' of the different 

 species of animals and plants was handled by the writer of 

 the ' Vestiges ' in the most uncompromising manner. It 

 is difficult for us, living at a time when naturalists have 

 almost universally abandoned the doctrine of independent 

 creation and of the fixity of species, to appreciate the 

 excitement, the alarm, and the indignation produced by 

 such outspoken deliverances as the above. It needs to 

 be remembered, however, that at the time of the appear- 

 ance of the ' Vestiges ' all the leading British naturalists 

 still adhered tenaciously to the idea that 'species' had 



