in our laboratories, insomuch that we cannot with any safety argue from the one to the other. The immensity of the masses on which nature acts, the time which is at her disposal, and the variety of the means which it is possible for her to employ in her operations, and of which it may be equally impossible for us ever to form an estimate, offer insurmountable barriers to the formation of any analogy.

Such is the doctrine of one of the most liberal of the school of Werner. Others however of the pupils of that illustrious Geognost differ somewhat in their detail of the first processes of terrestrial formations from that just now described: to instance in a particular case; they comprehend the whole assemblage of primitive formations in a single result, conceiving them to be due to contemporary crystallization. This theory, it is true, abridges somewhat the modulus of time expended on the changes which led to the organization of the surface, but is, equally with the former, incumbered with the hypothesis of a chaotic ocean, a figment not dissimilar to the "innabilis unda" of the Roman mythologist. Compare Cuvier, Theory etc. §. 4-7. Quart. Journ. ubi supra. p, 279. D'Aubuisson, Traité etc. Tom. i. pp. 270. 355. 271. 241-2. Disc. Prél. p. 30. Pr. Jameson on the Geognostical Relations of Granite, Quartz-rock, and Red Sandstone, Edinb. Phil. Journ Vol. i. pp. 109 sqq.

Now to all the views of those ingenious philosophers there occurs in limine one formidable objection; too much is conceded to second causes; they are in effect made to supersede Creation. Had they kept in view the canon of Newton, that "it is unphilosophical to pretend that the world might have arisen out of a Chaos by the mere laws of Nature," they might have

reasoned more consistently with the attributes of the intelligent First Cause, and at the same time not detracted from the soundness of their philosophy.

The Geognost has moreover performed but an inconsiderable part of his task, when he contemplates merely the external layers of our globe. What solution of the problem does he offer relative to the increase of density towards its centre, and the constitution of its nucleus, as presented to him in the researches of the physical Astronomer? The truths developed both by analysis, and experiments with pendulums, when not viewed as the effects of the disposing fiat of the Creator, afford a rather perplexing research into the operations of the Chaotic Fluid. See Laplace, Syst, etc. Livr. iv. Ch. 8. pp. 260. 3. 4.

NOTE (33). See Pr. Jameson's preface to Cuvier's Theory etc. pp. vi. sq. Note M. § 23. Cuvier, Eloge de Werner, Edinb. Phil. J. Vol. iv. p. 1. Theory, § 22. p. 53. Dr. Fleming's Notice of Werner's theory, Edinb. P. J. Vol. viii. pp. 116 sqq. See also the law of Organic Remains very generally announced in Dr. Ure's Dictionary of Chemistry, p. 480 b. The acute Humboldt has also directed his attention to the subject in his work on the Superposition of Rocks; principally however with a reference to particular classes, such as the Jura limestone, chalk etc. in which the observations have been most numerous, and best attested; pp. 366. 377. Eng. Transl. Ed. 1823. Compare pp. 12. sq. 337. 381, 2.

This Geognost is, however, sensible of all the difficulties which attend a classification of rocks on any other principle than their relative position; and limits therefore to the four most ancient primitive formations, the announcement of this position on the basis of interior

development. In these cases it affords data for his pasigraphic notation, (p. 471. ubi supr.,) but in no other.

The subject of Organic Remains was resumed in the viii th. and x th. Lectures; and the degree in which it should affect the Evidence of Revelation considered.

NOTE (34). Compare Lecture v of the present series, in which the grounds are stated, for supposing a series of primeval revolutions to be announced in the terms of the 2d verse. This subject was resumed in Lectures vii. x. (35).-See Pr. Jameson's note, ubi supr.

23. On the geological fact announced therein, Pr. Buckland thus argues; "It is demonstrable that there was a period when no organic beings had existence : these organic beings must therefore have had a beginning subsequently to this period; and where is that beginning to be found, but in the Will and Fiat of an intelligent and allwise Creator?" Vindicia Geologica, p. 21.

NOTES ON LECTURE IV.

NOTE (1). The conception of creative agency which it has been reserved for this and the following discourse to develop more fully, has been already presented in the words of Newton; Vid. Lect. iii. p. 12. Its proof, independently of Scripture, reposes on its suitableness as an agency to our ideas of a First Cause, as well as on the impossibility of conceiving how, or by what means, matter began to exist, unless by the Volition of an Intelligent and Omnipotent Agent. To say that it exists not independently of a Percipient only removes one difficulty to embarrass us with a greater; for then it may be asked, what originated the perception,...regarded as a faculty distinct from, or superadded to, systems of matter,...on which its being depends? In truth, the inquiry resolves itself into that concerning a First Cause the antecedence implied in that notion expresses commencement of being in all other cases, unless we have recourse to the monstrous absurdity of supposing, that an Essence necessarily uncompounded contains within itself, formally and essentially, all the elements of all finite existences.

It must however be confessed, that, when we pass from the discussion of the abstract principle, the proof is impeded in its application to particular cases by difficulties of a peculiar kind. "We see nothing now" (observes a sensible writer treating of this subject) "at all analogous to creation. We see plants and animals endowed with a power of reproduction, which they

derived from the Creator when he called them into existence, and which they continue to possess only in conformity to his will. But of creation, properly so called, we see no instance, whether we consider it as implying a production of organic substances out of nothing, or the formation of animated beings out of preexistent materials. I do not see then, how man could have formed any idea of creation; it is a matter of testimony; it is the result of faith, and not of reasoning, and hence it is that the apostle says, Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen, were not made of things which do appear.'" Esdaile's Christian Theology, p. 100.

The question however is not so much, whether we can form "an idea of Creation," as reason from obvious phænomena as to the exertion of the power. These are inquiries very different in their ends. The one ter- minates in the fact, whilst the other respects the mode, of the Divine operation; and natural appearances constantly occur, which force a belief of the former on our minds, whilst the latter, like other mysteries in the visible world, may for ever be hidden from our eyes. It is worthy of remark too, that the inspired Apostle uses the expression, "Through faith we understand," TÍTE VOOμ, "narrationi Mosaicæ fidem habentes, scimus, et persuasum nobis habemus" (Schleusner in voc. vośw). Now it seems to me, that this intelligence, so far from excluding the exercise of Reason, implies it in its highest sense, and refers the reader to a distinct, and corroborative, testimony, natural phænomena.

Let us take one of Mr. Esdaile's examples, the reproduction of vegetables. The physiologists of this kingdom of nature explain it by the stimulus imparted