272 



EXPLANATIONS 



new beings countless ages before the sui.able beings 

 make their appearance, showing that such was not the 

 principle to which we are solely to look for the genesis 

 of animals. But even though he were more successful 

 on this point, he would still be required to show his the- 

 ory of fiats, in harmony with a system, the most impor- 

 tant facts of which appear, on the contrary, to have taken 

 their present forms and arrangements under the immedi- 

 ate agency of the " Unremitting Energy." As to results 

 which may flow from any particular view which reason 

 may show as the best supported, I must firmly protest 

 against any assumed title in an opponent to pronounce 

 what these are. The first object is to ascertain truth. No 

 truth can be derogatory to the presumed fountain of all 

 truth. The derogation must lie in the erroneous construc- 

 tion which a weak human creature puts upon the truth. 

 And practically it is the true infidel state of mind which 

 prompts apprehension regarding any fact of nature, or 

 any conclusion of sound argument. 



The ingenioue Agassiz is equally disposed with Dr. 

 Whewell and the Edinburgh Reviewer to except some 

 part of nature as a domain for special intervention ; but 

 he wishes the limits of that domain to be rigidly exam- 

 ined, and reprobates the idea that such inquiries are be- 

 yond our province. " If," says he, " it is an obligation 

 on science to proclaim the intervention of a Divine power 

 in the development of the whole of nature, and if it is to 

 that power alone that we must ascribe all things, it is not 

 the less incumbent on science to ascertain what is the in- 

 fluence which physical forces, left to themselves, exercise 

 in all natural phenomena, and what is the part of direct 

 action which we must attribute to the Supreme being in 

 the revolutions to which nature has been subjected. . . 

 It is now time for naturalists to occupy themselves like- 

 wise, in their domain, in inquiring within what limits we 

 can recognize the traces of a Divine interposition, and 

 within what limits the phenomena take place in conse- 

 quence of a state of things immutably established from 

 the beginning of the creation. Let it not be said that it 

 is not given to man to sound these depths: the knowl 

 edge he has acquired of so many hidden mysteries in past 

 ages promises more extended revelations. It is an error 

 to which the mind, from a natural inclination to indolence, 

 allows itself too easily to incline, to believe impossible 



