^ DR. WHEWELL S VIEWS CONDEMNED. 26$ 



Deen doing for several centuries upon the coast of Eng- 

 land. In short, all the common operations of the j)hysi~ 

 cal world were going on in their usual simplicity, obeying 

 that order which we still see governing them, while the 

 supposed extraordinary causes were in sequisition for the 

 development of the animal and vegetable kingdoms 

 There surely hence arises a strong presumption against 

 any such causes. It becomes much more likely that the 

 latter phenomena were evolved in the manner of law 

 also, and that we only dream of extraordinary causes 

 here, as men once dreamed of a special action of deity in 

 every change of wind and the results of each season, merely 

 because they did not know the laws by which the events 

 in question were evolved. 



The writer of the critique in the Edinburgh Review is 

 another representative of opinion on this subject whose 

 ideas are worthy of notice. These ideas are not very 

 clear, but I shall endeavor to gather them from the vari- 

 ous parts of his paper where they are expressed. He 

 says of certain animals (p. 60) — "They were not called 

 into being by any law of nature, but by a power above 

 nature." If he means by a law of nature something in- 

 dependent of the Deity, I entirely concur with him. 

 Most unquestionably the animals resulted from a power 

 which is above nature, in the sense of its being the Au- 

 thor of nature. He adds — " They were created by the 

 hand of God, and adapted to the conditions of the period." 

 If he here means a special exertion of the powers of the 

 Deity, having a regard to special conditions, we part 

 company, for my object is to show that animals were in- 

 debted for their gradations of advance to a law generally 

 impressed by the Deity upon matter, and that their ex- 

 ternal peculiarities are owing immediately to the agency 

 of those very conditions to which they are supposed to 

 have been adapted. I contend that there was no more 

 need for a special exertion to produce (for instance) 

 mammalia, than there is for one to carry a human foetus 

 on from the sixth to the seventh, or from the eighth ta 

 the ninth month. I had remarked in no irreverent spirit, 

 but the contrary, that the supposition of frequent special 

 exertion anthropornorphises the Deity; I find a sirnilai 

 idea expressed by one who will not be suspected of irrev- 

 erence on such a subject, the pious and amiable Dod- 

 dridge — ki When we assert," says he, " a perpetual divinb 



