Vestiges of Creation. 955 



of deity, but this seems only catching at a straw to save himself from 

 drowning in the sea of avowed atheism ; for the deity appears as hypo- 

 thetical as the system, and has no connexion that we can trace with 

 the God of Holy Writ. 



"The ordinary notion" — we presume the author alludes to the 

 Mosaic Record — "the ordinary notion may, I think, be described as 

 this — that the Almighty Author produced the progenitors of all exist- 

 ing species, by some sort of personal or immediate exertion. But 

 how does this notion comport with what we have seen of the gradual 

 advance of species, from the humblest to the highest ? How can we 

 suppose an immediate exertion of this creative power at one time to 

 produce Zoophytes, another time to add a few marine Mollusks, ano- 

 ther to bring in one or two Crustacea, again to produce Crustaceous 

 fishes, again perfect fishes, and so on to the end ? This would surely 

 be to take a very mean view of the Creative Power — to, in short 

 anthropomorphize it, or reduce it to some such character as that borne 

 by the ordinary proceedings of mankind." — p. 157. 



We willingly leave the anthropomorphizing Record to its own merits, 

 and turning to the scheme suggested in its stead by the author or 

 authors of the ' Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation,' proceed 

 to examine, with as much brevity as is consistent with the importance 

 of our undertaking, the details of the scheme before us. 



It appears, then, that all living organisms or organized beings owe 

 their existence to a common law, not satisfactorily explained, but 

 seemingly dependent on some chemical or electric agency, by which 

 the germ of life, the first cell with its contained granule, can be at any 

 time called into being in the laboratory of the chemist. This cell, or 

 germ, or gemmule, is the origin of all existing animals. In its first 

 stage, it may be a Volvoa? globator, or any other simple form of 

 animalcule : it goes on begetting its own likeness for many genera- 

 tions, till at last a generation is produced, superior to those which 

 preceded, and a step higher in the scale. 



" The whole train," we quote the author's words, " of animated 

 beings, from the simplest and oldest, up to the highest and most 

 recent, are, then, to be regarded as a series of advances of the prin- 

 ciple of development, which have depended upon external physical 

 circumstances, to which the resulting animals are appropriate. * * * 

 The nucleated vesicle, the fundamental form of all organization, we 

 must regard as the meeting-point between the inorganic and the or- 

 ganic — the end of the mineral and beginning of the vegetable and 

 animal kingdoms, which thence start in different directions, but in a 



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