232 . ' B A T A V I A. 
And that this earth}- matter of spontaneous animation has 
been aggregated into all the shapes and sizes of hving crea- 
tures on the flice of the globe, merely by volition, b}'' 
forming 
^ , "A potent wish in the productive hour." 
Such sublime nonsense, though in contradiction to every 
knoAVn fact, is yet plausible enough to mislead the judgment 
of many of those to whom it is particularly addressed ; 
though, like the transmigration of souls, it is ushered into the 
western world in an age too enlightened to suffer it to pass 
into a religious creed. When the object of talents, so miser- 
ably misapplied, appears to be that of degrading man to a 
level with the lowest reptile that crawls on the earth, and of 
allowing him no other pre-eminence in the scale of creation 
than the accidental conception of a more " potent wish in 
" the productive hour — when the most disgusting com- 
parisons are drawn, ^sith. an obvious design to debase the 
" noblest work of God" down to 
His brother-emmets and his sister-worms 
one cannot avoid feeling the mingled sentiments of pity, con- 
tempt, and indignation, which even the seducing garb of 
harmonious verse has not the power of suppressing. In com- 
paring the writings of Paley with those of Darwin, how simple, 
how noble, how consolatory, are the design and contrivance 
of a benevolent Being demonstrated in the one ; how wretch- 
edly obscure, how mean, how hopeless, is the doctrine of a 
fortuitous concurrence of fortunate circumstances so pomp- 
