YOUTH OF OUE PLANET. 
301 
vegetable ; the animal, the fish, the saurian, the bird, the quadru- 
ped ; finally man, and last of all, woman— second edition of man — 
revised and corrected, and considerably embellished. 
That the earth has passed through all the necessary phases of 
the infancy of worlds, human reason cannot doubt. The history 
of the revolutions of the earth is indeed written, and in large and 
legible characters, in the stratifications of its mineral archives, where 
we find cased and ticketed with order and by dates, the remains of 
her various kingdoms, the forest world (fossil coal), and that of gi- 
gantic saurians, dragons, and vampire bats ; finally, that of the mas- 
todons, the elephant, and the bear, which was the precursor of man. 
Let us pass these slightly interesting epochs, and come to that 
when the earth has been called to play its part in the solar sys- 
tem, as the cardinal planet of friendship. This epoch is but little 
remote from us. The earth is not, as M. Yoltaire asserts, 
old coquette, that seeks to hide her lor.inklesA She is, on the con- 
trary, a very young star, and the proof is that this star passes 
at this very moment through the most painful phase of its infancy, 
the phase of dentition. Yes, with M. Voltaire’s permission, the 
earth is cutting its teeth. These teeth are called the printing- 
press, steam machinery, gun-cotton, aerial navigation, etc., whoso 
development causes so much suffering, but which are so many in- 
struments necessary to our humanity in passing from civilization to 
superior social phases, as the child, once armed with its canine 
teeth, uses them to pass from pap to beefsteak. * * * * 
We should do wrong to preoccupy ourselves unnecessarily with 
the subversive character of the first creations of globes, since this 
is necessitated. A creation is always in relation with the moral 
situation and the wants of its globe. The maleficence of species is 
the general rule in the creations of the subversive or lymbic phases ; 
it is only the exception in the harmonic phases. The last creation 
of the Earth, so fertile in sharks, tigers, and vipers, is only the im- 
age of the pains and the vermin which torment human infancy ; 
but these creations are necessary, like evil, to force man to con- 
quer his glorious destinies by force of genius and of courageous ef- 
forts. The law of the Series, the law of movement and of indef- 
inite progress, wills that humanity should react on the inferior 
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